#russian dally

[your-denis215]

Russian Dally headcanons pretty pretty please with a cherry on top?

Now, I will say, everything I know about russian Dallas is from alaskan-wallflower, so I apologize if any of this is inaccurate

Dallas was born in '48, so that's around the time that Stalin died and Russia was trying to move away from his beliefs. There was a housing and economic boom, and an emphasis on some de-Stalinization. But, there was also the spread of communist propaganda, the Cold War, and growing tensions with neighboring countries.

Dallas's parents moved him and themselves to America when he was around six.

I imagine his early life didn't change much, at least in my headcanon. His mother still died when he was very young, and his father was abusive in many terrible ways

Dallas didn't start learning english until his first juvenile detention stay at eleven.

He realized how dangerous the system was, not only for immigrants who didn't speak english, but especially for Russian immigrants.

He was abused by both fellow inmates and by guards, both during his first stay and every stay at juvie or prison after that

All the English Dallas knows, he taught himself (which is pretty damn impressive) and he picks up the New York accent to cover up his Russian one, since it's safer that way.

As for general headcanons:

+ After living in Tulsa for a while, Dallas mixes up accents a lot

+ I imagine, even after all those years, Russian is still his default, and he has to actively switch to the New York or country accents

+ He still says certain words with a Russian accent, especially if he's talking too fast, so he tries to avoid those words

+ New York cold does nothing to Dallas, so of course a Tulsa winter is basically a Russian summer

+ Dallas is SUFFERING in the Tulsa heat. It reaches sixty degrees and he's melting

+ I'm also a firm believer in Dallas with albinism, so you know he spends summer sunburnt to hell

+ Buck and Tim both played huge roles in Dallas learning how to "be American"

+ They helped him pick up the parts of English he couldn't teach himself

+ When he's angry, his New York accent gets stronger, but when he's upset he slips back into Russian

+ If he's angry AND hurt, he just screams a jumble of Russian words and New York slang that no one can understand

+ The gang has many mixed reactions, but I think they all still come around

+ Dallas still hides his accent, because he doesn't want to be mocked for it, but eventually he gets comfortable enough to let it slip

+ Whenever Two-Bit makes a stupid joke (usually about vodka or some other stereotype) Dallas just stares at him silently so he can wallow in his racist shame

+ Dallas by far struggles with English grammar the most, particularly the use of articles (a/an/the) since they just..don't exist in Russian

+ The gang always corrects him, but he gets really embarrassed about it

+ I've said before, but Johnny catches accents easily. So, as Dallas stops hiding his accent around the gang, he catches it, too

+ He actually teaches the gang some Russian (swear words, mostly), it becomes like a secret code between them

[alaskan-wallflower]

ELABORATE ON RUSSIAN DALLAS IMMEDIATELY. PLEASE. I NEED THIS.

ON IT 🫡

long ass post warning, i can YAP apparently—

Okay, so in my heart, Dally’s dad was Russian (from Leningrad), and his mom was a Native Siberian (part of the Chukchi people specifically). He was born in Leningrad. His dad was a police officer and his mom was a homemaker. He was pretty close with his mom and didn’t have the best relationship with his dad. He doesn’t remember much from when he was young—he remembers a lot of tension, but he couldn’t figure out why. Now, he kind of suspects it was because she was extremely suppressed by the Soviets and by proxy, his dad. When he was 6 years old, his mom grew sick with Tuberculosis and passed away when he was 7. His dad had full custody over him for about six months. Dally hasn’t disclosed to anyone what happened to him during those 6 months—not even Johnny knows. All the gang knows is whatever it is, it must’ve been incomprehensibly bad. He suffered pretty bad abuse—his dad had always been somewhat power hungry, and Dally’s mother’s death kind of just broke him. Dally won’t talk about it beyond that, though.

Eventually, it got bad enough that he lost custody of Dally, and Dally started living with his grandma on his mom’s side. They lived in Siberia for a year and a half before immigrating to the US under the pretence of being refugees seeking safety from the communist regime. This was true, though—it was hard for her to make enough to feed him, and he wasn’t getting a proper education. They needed what the US had at that time—more freedom and what at the time seemed like a fairer economy. The irony in that hasn’t changed. They ended up in Maine.

He lived in Maine with his grandma for around three years. She tried to educate him herself, and she did pretty decently. It was really difficult for them to live in America because they didn’t speak a lick of English, and Russians were pretty heavily looked down upon during the Cold War. His grandma unfortunately passed away when he was 12 from both old age and some unknown disease which Dally believed to be a form of cancer. That’s when he decided that maybe he was meant to be alone. And he was gonna be damned if he was bounced from foster home to foster home. Even if he didn’t speak English, he could still feel the intense hatred radiating off of anyone who looked his way. Being both Russian and albino didn’t make things easy.

Dally became a train rat. He snuck on trains without any idea of where they were going. He started picking up bits of English from his surroundings—the train stops grew repetitive enough that he knew a “train” must’ve been what he was riding and that ”three stops” was approximately how much longer he had before the train conductor told him to “get lost”. That was the extent of his English, though. He ended up in New York City, and he kinda just lived on the streets for a bit. He would seek out trains and subways, but was pretty unsuccessful with getting onto trains without being caught. So, that’s when he realized he had to play dirty to win. He was twelve when he first mugged someone—he felt bad at first, but in his mind, he went from “petty theft” to “this is survival” pretty quickly. There wasn’t much he could do for work, and stealing was just…easier, he supposed. So this was his life—hitching rides and stealing out of desperation.

He was 13 when he changed his name. His full name at the time was Dimitry Petrovich Rostovsky, and he figured that if he wanted any sort of chance in the US, he had to change his name. He chose “Dallas” because it was the city he was living in at the time and “Winston” because of the cigarettes. He moved to Tulsa when he was a few months later. He was freshly 14, and it was winter time when Buck found him outside of his place. He was clearly sick and had been running from the cops for stealing from a restaurant. With some quick thinking, Buck lied and said Dally was his kid, saving him. Dally’s immediate reaction was one of anger, thinking Buck was going to turn him away. He wasn’t used to strangers’ kindness. But Buck just sighed and ushered Dally into his own house. Dally had pretty bad pneumonia, and Buck nursed him back to health. Dally swore he was just going to leave afterwards, but he never did. a\

Buck started trying to teach Dally English—and he succeeded pretty decently. Dally’s English at 17 is significantly better, though not perfect. Buck became quite the father figure to Dally as well. Buck’s an ex convict and saw a lot of himself in Dally—he was young and desperate once too. But he knows what prison is like. Not county lockup—real Oklahoma State Penitentiary prison, and contrary to what Dally thinks, he doesn’t belong there. More than anything, he wants to see Dally succeed. That’s why he gave Dally a job jockeying. Dally had never been able to uphold a job before, and Buck hoped if he gave him one, he’d stop stealing as much. It kinda worked for a little bit—and Buck had never seen Dally genuinely smile like he did when he rode horses. Buck being a father figure to Dally is so important to me—especially when Dally describes Buck as a pushover. Buck is anything but a pushover, but Dally sees anyone being nice to him and thinks “oh I scare them so they bend to my will”. It’s not true, though. Buck genuinely cares about him. Maybe even loves him as if he were his own.

Dally actually became part of the gang after he dine n dashed from a place Darry worked at. Darry used to work as a busboy/host at some diner when he was maybe 16 or 17. He’d been sent out to chase after Dally, and he managed to catch him. Something about Dally just felt…off. Like he wasn’t doing this to be malicious. He was doing this out of necessity. It was habitual. So, Darry just let him off the hook, but warned him that he wouldn’t do that again if Dally came back. Dally and Soda rode horses together, and he recognized him from Soda’s events as well. Soda had told him about Dally—he didn’t talk much, which Soda later realized was because Dally was insecure about his lack of English (not that he’d admit that, though). Eventually, Soda introduced Dally to Johnny, who he clicked quickly with. After that, Johnny and Soda just brought Dally to the Curtis’s and introduced him to the gang. The way he was let into the gang was literally just

“Do you like cars?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like gettin’ into scraps?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m sold.”

The gang also tries to help Dally with his English—he’s pretty good with his words now, but he forgets and slips up sometimes. He’s tried to “get rid of” his accent by trying to slip it back into the New York one he’d heard so much. He hated the way people looked at him when he talked, so he thought if he sounded more “American” maybe it’d stop. His accent comes out more when he’s mad or emotional, though.

Anyway, I think that’s it! I might make a fanfic out of this—let me know if i should! I have an OC i might add to it as well—I gave Dally a little brother named Rusty.

I was kinda more vague with some parts because I haven’t put the proper research into some topics and I’d rather not expand on them until I have the proper knowledge, so I’ll hopefully make a more detailed version sometime soon!! ^^

[alaskan-wallflower]

it’s kinda funny because in russian, brother is брат (brat) and i can kinda see dally seeing darry call him brothers brats and he doesn’t get why it’s an insult because with english being his second language he doesn’t quite understand all the time so he’s just like “why is that an insult you’re just saying what they are”

idk dally being a russian immigrant is really interesting to me

[alaskan-wallflower]

I am thinking about Russian Dally. Thank you for that headcannon

you’re welcome lol—i like when people think about russian dally :)

russian immigrant dally is just peak. only thing that’s better is albino russian immigrant dally 🙂‍↕️

[alaskan-wallflower]

merry xmas to russian dally (pretty sure tds the right day? saw smone post ab it and it reminded me of your hc)

googled it a few weeks ago for a headcanon of my own and i think that’s right! so merry christmas to russian dally and anybody who’s celebrating today :)

[alaskan-wallflower]

russian immigrant dally is probably my most favorite headcanon for dally to date (aside from albino dally but you guys already know how much i love that one lol)

i wanna talk more about this but i’m too tired,,,ill share my lore in the morning don’t you worry (if i remember)

[alaskan-wallflower]

dally swears in russian a lot and no one understands him, but mrs curtis could always tell it was a swear from the way he would say it and would just have her hands on her hips and raise her brow with that damned Mom Look and be all “dallas what did we say about saying that” and he just sulks

[alaskan-wallflower]

Hello!!! I would love to hear about your russian dally hc!! :)

oooh okay! another anon asked about it too, so this is for both of you :)

Okay so Dally was born in Siberia, Russia with his mom, his dad and his little brother Rusty. They actually had a pretty good life—they lived in a small wood cabin sorta thing. They weren’t suuuuper well off, but they were living. His mom was a super sweet woman who loved her sons a lot, and their dad was hardly present in their lives. She died due to complications while birthing Rusty, and their dad was hardly home, but when he was, he was either drunk, or extremely depressed, and usually took it out on his sons. They were taken out of custody of their dad when Dally wa maybe seven and Rusty was about 5 and a half and their grandma took custody of them. She wanted what was best for them, and when Dally was nine, they moved to America. This was peak Cold War Era so I gotta figure out how to integrate that in, but obviously they were not very well liked. Their grandma had lived in America for a while before moving back to Siberia when Dally was five or so, so she knew English and tried to teach the boys She died when Dally was maybe eleven They lived in Maine at the time and ever since, him and Rusty had been street rats. They weren’t well liked at all, and it integrates with my headcanon that Dally’s name isn’t his real one. Dally was about twelve when he lived in New York, and that’s the accent he tried to mimic to fit in more when he lived in more. When he found Tulsa, he was going on fifteen and Buck found him and Rusty in the side of the road. Rusty was deathly sick with pneumonia and Dalky didn’t take too kindly to Buck at first, but eventually he let him help. He got introduced to the gang after dine and dashing with Rusty at the diner Darry worked at, and Darry being the fastest, was sent to chase them, and he did—but eventually just let them go. He knew he’d do the same thing. But he tells them not to come back, and if they really needed food that bad then they could meet him at the end of his shift and he’d get them food at his place. And ever since he was introduced to the gang.

He tries mimicking the New York accent to rid himself of his background in Russia, but it still slips out when he’s really angry or upset. Rusty didn’t wanna cover up his accent (and was worse at English since he was young when his grandma died and him and Dally communicated primarily in Russian)

Also “Dallas Winston” is a fake name. I’m not sure what his actual name is yet (Rusty’s was Nikolai but idk about Dally yet lol) and it was after Winston’s cigarettes and they were in Dallas at the time. And he was thirteen. Don’t tell me Dallas Winston doesn’t sound like something a thirteen year old would name himself given the chance, lol

If you want specifics please lmk!! i love yapping about this lol