Jan 29
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His moon <3
This will be somewhat coherent rambling, sorry in advance. I adore your Russian au grishaverse stories, even though I read the books like a decade ago, since I've been studying soviet history. I'm finishing up my bachelors soon and hoping to eventually get my masters in it. Why Draw Me to that Promised Land was one of the reasons I got into soviet history years ago, so it's special to me. The Immortalists is another favorite. The idea of mixing a secret magic history into real life is fascinating. I know you haven't written it in years, but did you have a specific idea for how the supernatural affected the revolution, world wars, etc? I'm also curious what resources you use to get character perspectives realistic? I'm not Russian/any former soviet state, but they seem to line up well with first hand accounts. Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich is one of my favorites
This is both a delightful and a well-timed ask, as I myself am currently re-reading why draw me to that promised land (which is one of my favorites of my own fics). I'm not sure if you're the same as a previous anon who told me that it got them into Soviet history (there was one who said that it taught them more than an actual college class in the subject, which is of course flattering but also somewhat concerning), but either way, yes, this is gratifying. I was about to be like "what do you mean YEARS ago," but... it was posted in 2021, which uh, is five years ago now. Inexorable passage of time personally victimizing me, etc etc. I am also fond of said fic for leading me to muh bestie @silverbirching, who read it and decided to friend-seduce me via commenting on AO3. As one might expect, this worked uh, very well.
I have been studying Russian/Eastern European history for a while, and my current in-progress superfluous master's degree is in international relations with a focus on Russia/Eastern Europe, so I have certainly read/done a lot more research than just the quick stuff you look at for fics. (Then again, it is a running joke that all fic writers do insane amounts of research for the sake of one throwaway line, so y'know, this might not be true.) This is why I am drawn to writing historical/contemporary AUs in settings that I know well and where I can bring the benefit of substantial expertise, because what is fic if not a setting for us to indulge niche special/academic interests while also making the blorbos kiss. Speaking of tiny niches, it gratifies me greatly that in the year of our Lord 2026, people are reading storm has set the heavens scowling (including those who know absolutely nothing about Shadow and Bone) and having Fivan feelings, as I have been one of the valiant captains of this tiny dinghy of a ship since its inception. Bless.
As for The Immortalists, it is definitely one of those fics that I still think about finishing at some point (many such cases, ALAS), but at least it gave us Sasha "Manbun" Morozov, who fit so nicely into Storm-verse without even having to change his name. (The idea of Aleksandr having an idiot manbun son is just irresistibly funny to me.) I would definitely love to dig more into how the supernatural affected history, especially in the Russian case (we do get a mention of Stalin using werewolves as shock troops in WWII), but that is obviously because I too love historical fantasy and finding ways to integrate magic into it. I'm not sure that I recall any specific ideas beyond that, but you do gratify me.
As for book recs: you may or may not be already familiar with these, but these are various sources that have been useful/interesting to me over the years. Such as:
Applebaum, Anne. Gulag: A History. New York: Vintage, 2004.
Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956. New York: Doubleday, 2012.
Applebaum, Anne. Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine. New York: Doubleday, 2017
Belton, Catherine. Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2020.
Clover, Charles. Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.
Gessen, Masha. The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. New York: Riverhead Books, 2017.
Higginbotham, Adam. Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020.
Ioffe, Julia. Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy. New York: Ecco, 2025.
Maddow, Rachel. Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth. New York: Crown Publishers, 2019.
Miller, Greg. The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy. New York, NY: Custom House, 2018.
Montefiore, Simon Sebag. The Romanovs: The Story of Russia and Its Empire, 1613-1918. New York: Vintage, 2016.
Nathans, Benjamin. To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2024.
Plokhy, Serhii. Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe. New York: Basic Books, 2020.
Plokhy, Serhii. The Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation, from 1470 to the Present. New York: Basic Books, 2017.
Plokhy, Serhii. The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2023.
Radchenko, Sergey. To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024.
Reynolds, Michael A. Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires 1908–1918. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2022.
Walker, Shaun. The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West. New York: Knopf, 2025.
Weiner, Tim. The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare, 1945-2020. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co., 2020.
Zubok, V. M. (Vladislav Martinovich). Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021.
similar dynamics; one has big eyes and a sunshine, the other one is grumpy and wouldn't let anyone get close to them but only one specific person can, looks scary but is actually a softy, both fought for their people but joined in different sides and litterly married <:0
Crows plot driving me mad, it's so stupid, I can't stand seeing Kaz in the oprichniki uniform, that's ridiculous, the bitch isn't even hiding his face. Oprichniki ain't your usual guards, they are the Darkling's elite guards, I—
I kinda like Marie, can't say the same about Nadia (not negative yet, just meh).
Alina is stupid, but Jessie looks adorable. And Genya seems to agree with me. And they gave show!Alina scraps of interests and preferences, while the book one doesn't have anything, good. But she's thinking as someone privileged, so bad.
"The Queen, Her Royal Bossiness, Tatiana, has absolutely no regard for my need to sleep." Just like Alina, hm?
"I don’t mind, actually. It tends to shift the King’s gaze in her direction. At least until nightfall." For later, cause Alina is a bitch.
🙄 I won't comment— They are fucking SERFS! All of them! Including the Darkling!
David! They're adorable.
They. Are. Disgusting. Look, I'm trying to skip the Crows, but I can't, I can miss my Grisha.
Good for changing one (1) privileged thing about them, but you missed the new ones you created.
Okay, I'll just say it: I hate half-Shu Alina.
Not as a concept, but the way it used in the show.
That's not cute, just stupid as fuck. Alina is stupid as fuck. The same goes for Genya.
Performer looks more like Alina (later) than show!Alina.
😭 Husbands.
Mal is ridiculous.
How fucking convenient that it's a door with a mechanism, and not just a part of the wall, since, you know, Durasts.
…after this scene you can't convince me some fivanling wasn't happening in the show.
He hates this performance, you can say it.
"Grisha and Ravkans" ರ╭╮ರ
They're so cute, why is Alina so stupid? 😭
Zoya should bite her tongue, she's forgetting herself. Vanya and Fedya are adorable. Now help me get my hand off my face, it's so stupid.
I'm adopting Pavel and Polina. I'd kill Inej, let me kill Inej.
Again, compared to the book, this performance sucks ass.
And I HATE this blue light.
Look, she's flirting 😅.
Love how nice the Darkling is, but stop, please. I hate Mal's plot armor.
Poor Marie, she died for nothing. And why Genya didn't try to heal her to maybe keep her alive?
They're cute. Pavel, stop, find a fucking backup!
Hate Mal's plot armor. [2] And what's up with them pulling the weapons out of body? Stop it!
They're hot, and cute, and I'm crying. The show's end is here, I don't care.
So…
"I’m trying to save you from living the rest of your life as a slave." No, the amplifier would only gave control ower powers (and even that wont work normally). And also no proof? Why would he?
"I’m trying to save you from Aleksander. He intends to expand the Fold and use it as a weapon. That’s what he created it for in the first place." Lie. For both the books and the show, she's just lying.
"Did he? Or did he want you distracted by dreams of your future with him? Did he want you dependent on him, on his Fabrikator’s tricky little gloves?" …are you fucking serious? That's just an empty accusation based on gullibility and vague slut-shaming.
"Child, Aleksander is the Black Heretic. He chose a nobleman’s name to hide after he made the Fold." So…?
"Look at me, girl. My son tried creating his own army with merzost. He didn’t think about the people who lived there, what such power would do to them. Turned them into the twisted, evil things that attacked you." Again, a lie for both. I don't even know what's to say, it's just a lie. In the books even Baghra saying that this was an accident.
"The volcra were men?" <<…>> "And women. Children. I warned him there’d be a price." Lie, lie, lie, LIE!
"He’s had many names, served many kings, faked countless deaths, waiting for you." A lie… I guess? Everyone was talking like Kirigan is the first known descendant of the Black Heretic.
"With you at his command, he’ll be able to enter the Fold and weaponize it as he always planned." What he planned?
"He’ll be unstoppable. He’s had centuries to master lying to naïve girls." Look 👆I don't know. And why didn't you help them, then, bitch?
"Did he tell you how lonely he was? Give you a glimpse of the wounded boy? He isn’t a boy at all. He is eternal. And you never stood a chance. Do you think this was just about you?" So you are. She's really just talling on herself here.
"He’s been obsessed with power… with hunting all of Morozova’s creatures. You nearly gave him the Stag." No? I mean, yeah, he was looking for the Morozova's Amplifiers, but what the fuck are you talking about?
Alina is stupid. Why are you listen this bitch who was hitting you with a stick and verbally abused you?
I want to fucking kill them. Disgusting sewer rats, who infected someone's home.
Yes, we definitely need to introduce Showling to Bookling. It's going to start out ugly, but they're gonna love each other. Hate Baghra.
A (incomplete) list of ships I would love to yap about right now with others who want to yap about them:
Posally (PJO)
Hayffie (The Hunger Games/Sunrise on the Reaping)
Haydove (Sunrise on the Reaping)
Everlark (The Hunger Games)
Odesta (The Hunger Games)
SwanQueen (Once Upon a Time)
CaptainSwan (Once Upon a Time)
CaptainSwanQueen (Once Upon a Time)
SwanFireQueen (Once Upon a Time)
Rumbelle (Once Upon a Time)
Shenny (The Big Bang Theory)
Eric/Sookie (True Blood)
Eric/Sookie/Godric (True Blood)
Darklina (Shadow and Bone)
Fivan (Shadow and Bone)
Kanej (Six of Crows)
Wesper (Six of Crows)
Helnik (Six of Crows)
Polycrows (Six of Crows)
Jake/Neytiri(Avatar)
Kiri/Spider(Avatar)
Honestly there is plenty more but these are the big ones right now
Thinking about the little grimace Five makes when Tegan returns after he abandoned her and how the lord doth protest too much, methinks
I love Shadow and Bone so much because every man in this show is trying to be a cool badass but they can’t hide they are all simps for their partners.