Application to Deme

[za_rodina]

Player Name: Alyssa

Player DW: 

emo_viking_jil 

Contact: andalltheworlds @ AIM and andalltheworlds @ plurk

Character Number: first!

Character: Russia | Ivan Braginski

Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia

Personality:

Russia is not an easily overlooked character. This is mostly because despite his “sweet and innocent face” he’s always got a semi-creepy aura around him. In the comic and anime this is shown by purple waves emanating from his body. These waves are usually accompanied by a crazed look and a chorus of an odd ‘KolKolKol’ laughter. Even when he isn’t going crazy like this he gives off an uneasy vibe which-when coupled with his sometimes childlike personality- seems almost worse.

Russia’s past has not been the best, and because of the strain it held on him his mentality fractured. It was not until the “Bloody Sunday” horror, however, that his mind truly cracked. He reverted to a childlike persona to hide himself from the horrors he had seen and committed. This mask grew stronger and more prominent with the World wars and all the deaths he felt. However, it was not till Stalin’s reign that he succumbed to feelings of worthlessness and self-loathing. All of this compounded and his mentality fractured. His mind split into pieces. It’s during this time that he was at his cruelest. In the manga he was shown to have physically abused Lithuania but Russia himself is unaware of his malicious actions.

Either way, from this point on he swiveled from an extremely childlike persona, a meek, subservient one usually only brought on by his boss, a cold, sharp persona and a shadow of his former self. In fact, it’s quite possible that he had developed a form of multiple personality disorder. This disorder was heaviest while Stalin was alive, but continued on until the fall of the Soviet Union. After the fall his personality switches became less intense, and occurred less often. These personality switches still occur now days, and are usually brought on by intense emotion. He sometimes has flashbacks and slips into his childlike persona most easily at times.

Now that Russia’s crazy factor has been explained it’s easier to delve into the ‘man behind the mask’. Russia’s pretty good at pulling up a stoic mask, mostly because of the things that happened to him in the past and the fact that he’s been schooled to show no weakness. Lately he’s been able to smile a bit more naturally but he still keeps his emotions very tight to his chest. If he trusts you enough- something that’s pretty hard to accomplish- then he is willing to show his true emotions and not cover everything up with an ever present smile and twisting words. It’s rare, but it does happen every so often.

A major part of Russia’s personality are taken up by his abandonment issues and his want to have tons of people around him, unfortunately for him his past and his creep factor tend to scare away the others. His sisters too do not stay with him, Ukraine is often kept away because she owes him something (like gas money) or her boss has forbidden her from giving him anything. Belarus is a bit of a different issue, mostly because she has a strange, overbearing obsession for him and wants him to marry her. Russia is often scared away from his youngest sister even if he does still care for her. Despite these things his dream is to one day live with everyone in a warm place with sunflowers.

Russia is an intelligent nation-man, and mighty observant, but he can also be childishly naïve at times. He’s got a lot of childish possessiveness and if he has some one under his rule, so to say, he doesn’t like to share. He tends to hoard people in a sense, and is extremely protective of those he deems as his.

Russia learned to rely on himself after the Mongol invasion and thus, he trained extensively to become strong enough to protect himself, his sisters, and his people. Because of this he became a strong warrior and developed a calculating outlook on people. Russia was already quite intelligent, but through his training he started to develop a strategist side. He can look at people the way that chess masters look at pawns, and sometimes is a firm believer in “For the greater good.”

The cold war brought about a great amount of paranoia in Russia. This has not fully gone away, for instance he still carries a TT30 on his person at all times. Another thing the Cold War truly drew out was Russia’s intimidation factor. Beforehand he’d been regarded with suspicion and some fear, but that doubled during the Cold War. Even years after the Soviet Union’s fall, Russia is still regarded with suspicion and fear. This isn’t helped by the fact that despite being a part of Eurasia he was pretty much always separated from the other countries due to his land’s coldness and such. His lands are part of Europe, and part of Asia, but he doesn’t really seem to belong to either of them so he finds himself within his own little corner of the world. This helps to make it so he doesn’t really understand the other nations, and they don’t really understand him. He doesn’t really have good relationships with the majority of them, and they in turn distrust and scurry away from him.

History:

Russia is an old nation, and his history could be very, very, long, so I’m going to be vague in some of the places I touch upon. If there are any comments please ask! Russia’s history starts early, sometime in the 800s when the Varingian Rus reached Kiev. However, the “Russ” state at Novgorod is when Russia’s people and lands truly started forming and that is not till around 862. The people were simply a loose conglomerate and not really nation material just yet, and for these earliest parts of his life, Russia and his two sisters basically wandered the lands. They were still very small in form and had nothing to do with any loose governments that had formed around Novgorod and other places. The capital move to Kiev in 882 drew them closer to their people enough so that they built themselves a small little house on the outskirts of town. They still didn’t really interact with the rulers of Kieven Rus, but up through the next few centuries until the Golden Horde invades in 1237 they are drawn closer and accept parts of their nation business. For Russia, this happens more when in 1169 the capital moves to Vladimir, which is by Moscow. As stated before, the Golden Horde invades and devastates Kieven Rus from 1237-1240, and from this point onwards through 1380 Russian land is under the Tartars’ rule. This means that in essence Russia was with the Golden Horde and kept like a little pet until the other nation-man got tired of him and foisted him off to his people. This is, ultimately, part of the Golden Horde’s undoing as it led to Rus being able to grow up a bit with his own people and while he was not exactly out of a child’s body he had grown some. It was enough for his people to rise up and throw out the Golden Horde and form the Grand Duchy of Moscow. They were still a tributary to the Golden Horde until 1480, however, so Russia was still not completely his own yet. Now, the Grand Duchy of Moscow lasted up until 1547 when Ivan IV (Hint: There are a lot of Ivans.) takes the throne and becomes the first official Tsar of the Tsardom of Russia. So we have about 200 hundred years, where Russia’s people conquer and annex surrounding lands such as the Novgorod Republic and the Grand Duchy of Tver. Ivan III adopted the title tsar, and also claimed “Ruler of all Rus” as his title. For 43 years Russia was ruled by Ivan III and it lead to his territory tripling in size and the ability to successfully campaign again the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which was a major rival power at this time. In addition, Russia became known as the “Third Rome” through his ruler’s marriage to the niece of Byzantium’s last emperor. In 1500, Russia is actually able to defeat Lithuania and take lands away from him; something the next ruler also succeeds in doing and gains lands all the way to the Dniepr River. This river just so happens to be one of the major rivers in Europe and it allowed Russia to open up trade down the line. So basically, Muscovy was a period of strengthening and growth for Russia. Speaking in age, he was in about his preteens at this time. He manages to grow a bit more during the Tsardom, enough to hit that awkward teenage stage, which he only manages to grow out of during his time as an empire.Being stuck as a teenager for centuries is just one of the reasons why we do not envy nations. Moving on, the Tsardom was declared and led by Ivan IV, who is perhaps better known as Ivan the Terrible. Ivan IV expands Russia’s lands even further and begins the task of annexing Siberia. We could explain more on Ivan the Terrible, but really all you need to know is he created a treaty with England, added more lands, created a new set of laws and a rural government, oh and there was a reign of terror somewhere in there. Around 1589 the Russian Orthodox Church becomes independent and kicks the other orthodox churches to the curb, this is significant only in the fact that the Orthodox shaped Russian culture from the Keiven Rus conversion for a millennium. It’s not until the Soviet Union goes Atheist that the Orthodoxy has to go underground. The majority of Rus’ people practices underground, and switch holidays and traditions around to be able to keep practicing their faith. Russia himself does not follow his people’s example and loses faith in any deities out there. After a few Tartar raids on Moscow, and several years go by the Time of Troubles rears its head. This period can basically be explained away by a lot of fake Dmitri’s and also a lot of dead Dmitri’s. Simply put, the heirs to the throne have all either been killed, plague’d, famine or died long since. When things turn very Russian and the cold weather led to famine, famine led to economic collapse as refugees from the outer provinces fled into Moscow to take advantage of government relief efforts, disorganization and depopulation led to banditry, the Cossacks on the frontier grew restless, starvation and plagues broke out in the cities everyone blamed the not very popular ruler. So, Russia is in a panic trying to find the new heir when all out of the blue, Poland comes trotting up on his pony and declares he has Dmitri, an heir, back home. Which is great and all, but really, Russia was pretty sure this guy had died a while back. Through shenanigans, and a dead Dmitri and the current ruler of Russia later, Poland invades and it’s with the help of Sweden that Russia manages to drive away Poland, and a second Dmitri he’d dug up out of the woodwork. The guy who’d got put on the throne, a highly unpopular member of the National Assembly, was forced to abdicate. The second Dmitri didn’t take the throne however, because Poland had a brilliant plan. Said plan was for his prince to rule Russia. Now, Sweden had some beef with Poland around that time, and this was not cool in his boat. So what does he do? He turns around and declares that Dmitri was with him all along. So they go to war. But Poland isn’t done just yet. He decides that hey, it would totally be cool if his prince didn’t become Tsar, but his king became the king of Russia instead. Okay, so we’ve got Catholic Poles controlling Moscow and Smolensk. Protestant Swedes occupying Novgorod. The throne is still empty, the National Assembly is feuding amongst themselves, and two rival imposters, a prince, and a king are all vying for the tsardom. Elsewhere in Russia, banditry and starvation has brought the country to his knees. Sounds like a pretty hopeless situation, doesn’t it? How on earth does he bring himself out of this? Basically? A huge surge in patriotism. No, seriously. The dismal state of the nation basically convinced everyone from the peasants to the oligarchs that they really needed to band together as Russians and throw these guys out. So they did. Once the Russian resistance had gained an efficient leader, the sheer ferocity of the resistance shocked the occupiers and Russian cities were quickly reclaimed with only a few land losses to end the war. These lands would be gained back over the next centuries however. This whole thing led up to the start of Romanov rule, and they would be Russia’s ruling family to the death of their line in 1917 with the end of the Empire. But we have yet to truly reach the empire yet. See, it doesn’t start till Peter I takes the throne in 1689. Peter the Great, as he’s known more commonly, is one of the most influential leaders of Russia. He developed it from a still medieval state that had yet to go through the renaissance the rest of Europe went through, and opens up Russia to Western culture. He develops the nation into a then modern power, and creates a new Capital that will be called the “Window to the West” and later on Leninsburg. This capital is St. Petersburg. This growth and modernization is enough to send Russia through a growth spurt, and through Peter, and Catherine’s rule he grows until he reaches the extent of his growth a bit before Napoleon’s invasion. Peter did a lot for the nation, including starting Russia's first newspaper and editing the first issue himself, raising woman's status by having them attend social gatherings, ordered the nobles to give up their traditional clothes for Western fashions and also requiring they shave off their beards. He advanced Russian education by opening a school of navigation and introducing schools for the arts and sciences while also reorganizing and reforming the Russian armed forces and created a modern navy modeled on European practices. Also, he introduced potatoes. Yay, Potatoes. Peter’s death in 1725 does not spell the end for the growth of the nation, but it does provide a running start for Russia to grow and prosper. During this time is when Russia is able to interact the most with the rest of the world for the first time in his life, but he finds himself increasingly different from the others and not as easy to integrate into modern society in other countries. He’s sort of that country bumpkin trying to make it big in a capital city. It doesn’t really work out too well. Also during this time there are a lot of pretty constant wars with Turkey, Prussia, Poland, France and Britain, and Russia has actually grown enough at this time to be able to join the war front. So he does, and it’s here that he sharpens his capabilities both as a soldier and a nation. This basically dominates his life for the next several decades off and on. Catherine II’s rule is really the next big milestone, as she turns Russian into one of the strongest powers in Continental Europe; but really, we’re not interested in her are we? Because in 1812, Napoleon invades, and Russia follows the scorched earth strategy by burning down Moscow to force him back. With General Winter’s help, and the Russian peasants’ guerrilla warfare, thousands of French soldiers are taken down and driven out. Badass, am I right? So we have Russia, burning down his capitol to drive back France, who had been something of a mentor to him a century or so ago. Ultimately, this just strengthens his distrust of the other nations. Even with Napoleon out of the picture, however, Russia is not done with war. For the next several decades various wars and campaigns sweep Europe and Russia continues to gather land and power until WWI rears its ugly head and drags Europe down with it. WWI is essentially not very successful for Russia to put it lightly. In the beginning, it starts out with devastating military loses at Masurian Lakes and Tannenburg and greatly weakens the Russian army in the very first stages of the war. Lending more damage to the moral of the people was Rasputin’s growing influence over the royal family. Russia spent WWI split between the battlefields and at home, but he too, like the vast majority of his people did not trust Rasputin and his influence over the tsarina. The stirrings of rebellion were getting louder, and Russia was split between both sides. On one hand, his royals had been there since day one, he’d seen them grown up, and been there all their lives, but the people are intrinsically tied to him and his psyche. So in the end, he caves in and follows the revolution. In January of 1905 protestors gathered at the gates of the palace. They were peaceful striking workers, however the palace guards and Russian troops stationed there fired on the workers, wounding and killing hundreds. This event, “Bloody Sunday”, cracked Russia’s mentality both because of the strain his people killing their kin caused, and because Russia himself shot out into the crowds. In canon he is seen telling Lithuania that they “don’t want children who don’t behave.” It is my personal belief that he was the first person who shot into the crowd, and his shot found purchase. It is because of this, that his heart falls out occasionally. It represents all the things that he and his bosses have done to his people and land. Canon Russia seems to accept it, and state that it’s just a thing that happens but it is also a reminder of how things were. After 1905, Russia is never quite the same. He’s able to keep himself together for the most part and go to war like a good little soldier, but he has moments when he slips and goes off the deep end, causing unnecessary violence and almost delighting in it. He feels remorse once the moment passes, but each one becomes longer and eventually, by the time Stain has gained control of the Union, Russia is almost always in one of his more insane moods. The 1917 overthrow of the monarchy and their following execution is possibly a furthering cause of this, but while he was there for the Romanov’s deaths, he did not personally kill them. The death of the monarchy doesn’t exactly stop the problems in Russia at this time. There’s still civil war going on, even though the nation is under Lenin’s control and stability is not something that seems on the horizon. With the Red Terror pushed forward by Stalin, and the communist party itself getting purged for three years and five million dying of famine nothing seems secure. The formation of the USSR in 1922 seems as if it will lend more stability but Stalin taking power and collectivizing agriculture and starting up industrialization doesn’t help and famine strikes once more. For almost twenty years after this, Stalin’s Great Purge kills millions. This and the upcoming WWII means that Russia is a very sick nation. Famine strikes hard, and not even a nation can escape that. Russia had an alliance with Germany around this time, and they invade Poland together, throwing the world into WWII, however, in 1941 Russia is betrayed and Germany invades. Once more, Russia relies on the scorched earth policy, and it’s with remarkably similar instances that Napoleon faced that Russia is able to drive out Germany. It is not without casualty however, millions were killed and it left Russia weak and thirsty for revenge. Which he got. Pushing the Germans out of his heartlands meant that they had nowhere but towards Germany to go and Russia kept pressing them backwards, capturing and holding the lands between them for the Union. Russia himself was vicious in his pursuit, and he does eventually manage to catch up with Germany. With the end of WWII Russia rises to the position of a superpower, and this also kicks off the Cold War. Insert nuclear threats, arms races, space races and just all out tension between Russia and America for the next half a century and you get the picture. There’s a lot more detail I could go into this because it was obviously a big deal between not only Russia and America, but the rest of the world who basically had to wait on pins and needles to see if the two superpowers would unleash nuclear annihilation on each other and the world. By the time of Khrushchev’s reign, Russia was a little better at holding in and controlling the moments of insanity and had scaled them back from a pretty much constant thing, to a maybe half the time thing. This goes hand in hand with the thaw in the Cold War, though the Cuban Missile Crisis and the end of the thaw does not help much. When the battles pick up in Korea and Vietnam, Russia simply picks up his gun and heads out once more. He’s gotten remarkably used to being a dog of war over the years and finds it rather easy to slip on indifferent and apathetic masks to deal with things. In a sense, he never shows his true self, because he’s been taught and forced into shoving his emotions and reactions down so nobody can get to them and hurt him. Russia is incredibly guarded, and he doesn’t trust easily. This is offset by his dream to live happily with everyone in a warm place filled with sunflowers. But again, it makes perfect sense because one of Russia’s biggest fears is being left all alone. During his time as the Soviet Union, he tried to combat this by “hoarding” other nations, in a sense. For a while it worked and his house was full of others, but they didn’t truly want to be there and fought to get away. Eventually they succeeded, and one by one everyone left Russia behind as they once more gained independence. He fought this fiercely, and sometimes in an over the top manner, but it didn’t matter because his government was crashing and he could not keep everyone together. So they left, and he fell. In December of 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia’s economy was down in the dumps. Mobsters took over and he found the corruption inescapable. It does not help when in 1998 the stock market crashes and Russia’s economy once more takes a swan dive into the deep end. But Russia has been slowly working himself up and as of modern day he’s doing relatively okay. He’s gotten a hold of those insane bouts, and while he does sometimes slip into them, they do not last as long nor are they as intense. That said, some things have definitely not changed. Russia still very much enjoys creeping up on the Baltic brothers and has a rivalry of some sort with America who doesn’t believe Russia when he says that he’s not actually communist anymore. Usually spouting something about “Once a Commie always a Commie.” In addition, I’ll be bringing Russia with memories from Magic Draft. I am currently still playing him there, but would like for him to keep some of his memories from his time there. This would be from November 2011 to beginning of April 2012 (as a note, this would be November 1996 through April 1997 in game time). Russia’s drafting into Hogwarts’ magical war, and subsequent enrolling at the school came with several pros and cons, and in the end was a severe identity crisis for him. This would be because the major thing taken from him was his semi-immortality. Russia lost his nation status and was reduced to Ivan Braginski, a mortal man who held a not so mortal background. With his new found mortality, Russia also became a fourth year Slytherin, and took his place as a “normal” student of Hogwarts. Unfortunately, despite the seemingly easy going life that Hogwarts portrayed, things were not peachy keen. War lurked under the surface of everyday life even as Hogwarts attempted to cover this up with normal classes and Quidditch. While it was not immediately prevalent, on occasions attacks on the school occurred and the drafted were caught up in it. In December, Dementors invaded the school and only those with the ability to cast the patronus or lucky enough to find people who could, managed to survive. As for Russia, he managed to push himself and cast a successful patronus which took the form of a large star-studded bear. This bit of magic ended up saving Russia and his ally Hungary from being kissed by Dementors and from that point on Russia threw himself into his studies and training to be ready for anything the Dark Lord threw at them. Even when only a month or so later Hungary left, Russia was fully devoted to becoming as strong as he could to protect the others under his watch. This was furthered by the fact that he had kind of adopted Rapunzel*, sort of sold himself to Alois Trancy and also took protecting the other nations still there as his job. Unfortunately for Russia, while he is strong and fairly good at magic, he is not a master of it, and he has a lot of fallacies. It is, for example, not very good that his memories as a nation are stronger and more prevalent than the mortal ones. With the loss of his nation-state, and the so called “sixth-sense” that comes with being tied to a land and people, Russia was turned mortal and lost an ability he appeared with and had held for a millennia and a half. Because of this, and because of just how powerful his war memories- and those perhaps not quite so sane-memories are, when it came to the rescue battle in February to take back captured students, Russia slipped and killed two death eaters before he took a hit that potentially could have been fatal for Minato Arisato. This was a turning point for Russia. On one hand he was in a wobbly state of being that could have him toppling back into a more crazed and unhinged state, and on the other he was grim and somber because he had finally realized (or been forced to realize) that nations were completely mortal here. With this in mind, Russia has taken a bit less of a frivolous view of this world even if he had never had one in the first place. He grouped up with Tieria, who he has a bit of a dislike for, and together they started to form a group to keep tabs on the Drafted to make sure something like the kidnappings in February didn’t happen again and also to train and make sure they were all capable and able to protect themselves. Because of the hush hush surrounding the whole event and also the Drafted’s status and ignorance in the Ministry, the group is a sort of rebel group. They are neither Hogwarts sanctioned, nor Ministry approved. But with the decades of war he’s witnessed, Russia is certain that keeping the Drafter locked up will do nothing to protect them or to end the tyranny the Dark Lord threatens the Wizarding World with and as such, he’s become increasingly paranoid. It’s from here Russia will be taken. He’ll appear in Demeleier with scars from a war he has, in essence, abandoned and people left behind that he’d promised never to leave. His paranoia could either help or hinder him when it comes to the fae and he will have to deal with it without the power he’d grown used to with four months’ time.

Timeline: November 2011, but taken from April 1997 Hogwarts time.

Abilities:

Because he is a nation, Russia is stronger and a bit more resilient that your normal human. He has faster healing abilities and can re-attach limbs if need be. However he can still be wounded and depending on his economy and the state of his landmass this healing can be the same as human’s or longer. He’s had lots of practice with a shashka and firearms as well as his pipe. Because of his experience in battle situations, he’s particularly good at keeping his mind clear when things are chaotic.

Russia is a nation, and has lived a long life, because of this he’s aware that the fae existed back when he was a child and pagan, but with the adoption of orthodoxy he became mostly unable to see them. However, because I’ll be bring him from Magic Draft, he’ll be coming here with knowledge of fae because it is a nearly everyday thing to learn there, and Russia himself spent as much time as possible to make himself ready to face anything that would potentially come at the Drafted. He will not, however, be able to do much against them since he will have learned magical means of defense.

Inventory:

Ø 1 Tokarev TT30 with limited rounds

Ø 1 faucet pipe

Ø 1 11’’ Blackthorn wand (now useless)

Ø 1 Commuter (now useless)

Ø 1 mini Chinese Fireball dragon the size of a hand

Ø 1 military uniform

Ø 1 cream colored scarf

As a side note, Russia had a barn owl in Magic Draft, and I’d like for him to keep her here though I realize that she’d most likely wing away and be found later into the game.

Link to an image of the character: A Russian and his gun

Prose Sample:

It was a bit odd how the duality of nations worked sometimes. Russia stood at the large bay window, looking down at the crowd of his people. He heard their cries shiver past the window panes, just a faint brush against his hearing but within seconds he could lose himself in their minds, hear the roar of the crowd, the crush of bodies pressed together against the cold and the empire.

The guards were getting nervous- he could feel that too, the heady rush of panic settling in- and Russia wondered if his royal family would be taken away soon, protected.

Part of him whole-heartedly wanted that. Another part railed against the injustice of the Empire, the cruelty his (Their) rulers held against him (them). He brushed gloved fingers against his temple, winced at the frantic drum beat in his head.

His control was failing; it was always hard to keep himself separate enough when turmoil was on his people’s minds. With a growl he turned from the window.

He could still feel them, always would, and he knew what was happening. The protestors were peaceful he was sure, he had felt it, knew that they would flee instead of fight but the thrum of armed-guard-panic in his veins was a forewarning.

“Mr. Russia?”

Lithuania’s voice was always soothing, even though Russia could see the barely concealed fear in his eyes. It was hidden well behind his concern but Russia knew it was there.

“Lithuania, we don’t want children who can’t play nice, right?”

Russia turned from Lithuania’s rapidly paling face. He blinked the tears from his eyes and opened the window in front of him. Snow whipped inside and swirled around him as he grasped his rifle from against the wall where he’d left it. Vaguely he heard Lithuania’s worried protest, but he didn’t bother to acknowledge the other nation as he hefted the gun and aimed out at the crowd.

Why can’t they understand what I’ve done for them?

Russia felt the recoil of the rifle, and the phantom pain of bullets riddling his body as the guards shot into the crowd. But he’d never forget that he was the one who’d started it. That first bullet through the heart.

Journal Sample: As an additional note, any characters that Russia would have known in Magic Draft I will ask the muns if it is fine for Russia to remember their character and to address it. Two examples of this would be Holiday's Rapunzel and Snarky's Minato who were in Magic Draft with him and who also retain memories of their time there. People this would effect on a larger scale would be Alois Trancy, Tieria Ende, various Hetalia cast members

A bit of an old post, but sufficient in showing his earlier view on things.

And one showing his newer views.

As an additional note, any characters that Russia would have known in Magic Draft I will ask the muns if it is fine for Russia to remember their character and to address it. Two examples of this would be Holiday's Rapunzel and Snarky's Minato who were in Magic Draft with him and who also retain memories of their time there.