Meta! AKA Watch Angha Go Pseudo-Academic On Your Ass.

[angualupin]

This was prompted primarily by The Events That Have Been Transpiring At Chelsea, and worked out in a couple conversations with Vy and Nol, but they’re all thoughts that have been going around in my head for a while. Am I making this up? Yes, to a certain extent. This is my reading of these people based solely on what we see of them through the

Comments

[angualupin]

There might be some background similarities in that they both come out of former USSR countries, but I think their childhoods are more different than they are similar. First and foremost, the difference in their age is significant; Sheva is five years older than Aleks, but it's five years where events in history changed a lot. Sheva was 13 when the Berlin Wall fell; Aleks was eight. That's five more years of growing that Sheva did under the unbroken USSR. And do not ever, ever underestimate the effect Chernobyl had on Sheva; he was forced to evacuate to the seaside after the meltdown and if you want an event that proves to a child just how little control he exerts over the world, get him really near a nuclear disaster.

Sheva's past formed Sheva in a way that Aleks' past did not. Aleks simply had a normal (or as normal as it could be) childhood, where he was able to grow into the adult he was going to grow into. I will not at all say Aleks acts the way he does because he is coming out of Communist and post-Communist Belarus; I think Aleks acts the way he does because he is a bit of a dolt. He would be Aleks were he Bealrussian or English; Sheva would not be Sheva had he any other past.

For your grinning Aleks I give you smiling Tomaš. Make out! Make out!

[louis_quatorze]

*smushes them together*

I prefer 'happy.' Well, maybe 'bit of a dolt' works too. Although I've been reading about Belarusian politics lately and wow, there's some messed-up stuff going on in that country. (And Chernobyl had a small effect on Aleks as well, as his father was sent off to knock down houses and according to Aleks still has health problems because of it.)

I find them interesting to compare, but I'm a person who likes comparisons. Sheva seems to have had a slightly better-off childhood with more opportunities- from what I understand Aleks wasn't part of a club until he was 17, unlike Sheva who was in Dynamo Kiev's academy from 9 years old and shone in youth tournaments when he was in his teens. He also came West as a known quantity and as an adult, compared to Aleks who was in his late teens. Definitely different paths...