The “oh god please don’t make me try and explain Turkey/Zhores” essay.
THEY’RE COMPLICATED, CAN I PLEASE JUST GET AWAY WITH THAT THIS TIME? …I can’t can I? Fffffuuuuuu-
In a lot of ways I feel guilty for writing this essay, and that’s one of the main reasons I’ve stalled on it. “Haven’t I mentioned Turkey in the last few essays? Didn’t I semi-focus on the country aspect of him and the Sekirei game? That’s got to count.” I say to myself, hoping that I can use this as an excuse. Clearly people don’t want to read even more about it. And then Cielo, hooker that she is, continues to ask questions in castchan about it. So if anything I’m shifting my “rehashing this subject” guilt onto Cielo and typing this thing up.
The Start
Zhores met Turkey back when he was more or less spying on countries out of habit and because he expected to be whisked back to his world in a month or two, because fate’s a bitch to him like that. Now he didn’t realize that Turkey was a country, and most of their early history I already went over in the Sekirei essay. Needless to say, the grand summary of the bond that’s remained is more like a boost and perhaps he subconsciously picks up tiny signals of emotion from Turkey once in awhile. That’s my excuse for Zhores being able to read Turkey’s maskless icons even though he’s masked all the time, and I’m sticking to it. Okay also there’s him picking up on body language, but that’s what Zhores just does. In any case! The feelings of desire and whatnot were really just a spark that got him interested. I could tell you now that if the bond didn’t exist on Zhores’s end, he’d react the same way.
But where the essay left off they managed to be… kinda domestic, at least by Zhores’ standards. While Zhores is a snarky bastard who is the unholy combo of a tsundere/kuudere/yandere threesome, Turkey for the most part was someone he considered a suitable roommate. Even if he fervently denied that he had any interest in him and that it was just mindless physical benefits.
Now one thing that I kind of assumed was that Zhores slept with Turkey during this period. It was economical, it was just starting to be winter (in fact, IIRC it was around this time of year), and they were friends with benefits anyway, so why would it be such a big deal? Howeveeeer, this may or may not be the case because there were a lot of things that me and Spain didn’t bring up, so who knows. Any way about it, Zhores was casually near Turkey, but it wasn’t quite a Thing yet. Sleeping alone wouldn’t be a big deal because Zhores had become used to it and viewed it as how he was completely over Louise and that he didn’t need a bedwarmer… he had it worse before, and that didn’t kill him, excexc.
Strangely I’m not sure when this bit of headcanon cropped up, but it’s something that I think is a small, but important detail for Zhores. After the war space was scarce, and so in the more heavily-populated cities you would have entire families renting out a room’s worth of space as an apartment. This meant siblings often slept together. Even though I headcanon that Zhores was raised by his sister, it still meant that there was probably only one bed in the room and the only time Zhores slept alone was when his sister was away. I could go into so much more rambling about communal apartments and that part of Soviet culture, but this essay is about Turkey. In any case Zhores mainly has slept alone when his sister was gone, in between missions when he didn’t bring someone home, and after Louise wasn’t around anymore. All in all rather lonely times, and considering how much they show Zhores lounging it up in bed with Louise and how much he enjoys being close to Louise when they’re in bed in the A ending, I figure I’m not too off-base.
But the point is, Zhores was developing real feelings for Turkey, but as a tsundere falling for a lovable douche, there was a lot of resistance on Zhores’s end… and a lot of cluelessness on Turkey’s end. I’m going to say though, that Turkey had nearly the patience of a saint with how much Zhores kept testing him, just waiting for Turkey to fail.
Cluebatting
The spot where Zhores really figures it out is hard to pinpoint, but it was after a long period where he slowly started to open up to Turkey more, and eventually begin to really trust him. I’d say there were a few times when he verbally confirmed that he had feelings for Turkey, but because of the tsun/clueless combo, it never really ended up being something that they talked about openly. However it wouldn’t matter anyway, the real honeymoon period was during the Sekirei game. There Turkey was a dick, but he understood Zhores’ feelings, compromised, was open in a lot of ways that he’s never been since, and he was even gentle in a number of ways. And I would say these hazy memories are what was responsible for a lot of Zhores’s issues about Turkey during this time. Zhores became more domestic and Turkey didn’t outwardly notice it. Zhores lightened up and showed his dere side and the reactions were the same as when Zhores was more closed off. Something subconsciously told him, “why aren’t things turning out different?” and the incongruity between what had occurred before and what was happening then just plain frustrated him. He knew that Turkey could be more open and less of a dick, even if he couldn’t rationally explain why. In a lot of ways Zhores started really pushing to get any reaction because at least it was something.
There were a few times when Turkey really showed he cared, and as much as Turkey put up with a load of crap, I’d say that it’s somewhat understandable that Zhores was always taken aback when Turkey was nice to him. He seemed to show the most emotion about heavy topics, and Zhores by nature tends not to broach those until he feels the matter is unavoidable. Mutual communication fail, they has it.
This is also when Zhores started being couched more often, to the point where Spain commented once that Zhores was sleeping with him like, once a week tops. I’d say this really drove home the idea of sleeping alone == punishment. This eventually led to a Talk about being couched, but that belongs in the next section.
Current events
Now this also is hazy, but I’d say this stage started around when Greece got in. Turkey and Zhores had some major rough spots, but they still spent a decent amount of time together and at least a good portion of Turkey’s douchebaggery was still focused on Zhores. With Greece that changed. Turkey had his brat! Turkey spent a lot of time catching up with the brat… and never really stopped. Instead of Zhores’ even getting a reaction, he felt well. Powerless. For all of Zhores’ problems, he’s not blind, at least mentally. He saw many of the same features he had in Greece, much like how he clued in to them when Turkey talked about “the brat”. In addition Greece and Turkey had a longer relationship together, and in short he knew that he was the interloper in the whole thing.
All in all, he felt effectively tossed aside.
Now sure Turkey still spent time with him, but when things came up Greece came first, and that became a solid trend. Zhores doesn’t have a issue with polygamy as long as all parties get roughly equal attention, but it didn’t feel like that to him in his admittedly paranoid mind. In many ways it brought back his worries about what occurred with Louise, and how he lost interest with Zhores. It’s also around here that Zhores finally talked with Turkey about the bed thing. Unlike the other conversations where Turkey clued in and showed that he cared, Turkey sort of missed the mark and built a bed for Zhores. This effectively meant Zhores slept alone the entire time, and when he made a valiant attempt to sleep with Turkey, he was unceremoniously denied in Turkey’s normal diskish ways. In short, Zhores felt like everything had failed and short of murdering an entire nation worth of people (horrible a person as he is, even Zhores has a moral or two), he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Turkey again. He even tried to get to know Greece better, but got the feeling that Greece wasn’t overly fond of him, and he just didn’t know how to strike up a conversation.
Then the dream event happened, and more or less Turkey saw an unfiltered, utterly damaged view of Zhores mental landscape, complete with overlaying issues about his obsolescence, guilt, and feelings about his relationships and past. It wasn’t pretty, it more or less lashed out at Turkey, and Turkey’s problem with picking up the small details that Zhores had often left led to terrible results. There was some catharsis! And I can say that Zhores’s mindscape was a lot healthier until about last night. Even though Zhores got stuck in the hospital and nearly died (a minor detail, really!), he did feel that he gained something and that he would be fine with being just friends with Turkey. A lot of it was swept under the rug, but that’s how Turkey rolls.
Still however there were issues, and October was a bit rough on him. He faced one of his fears (again), died twice, and in general felt like he was powerless to gain any major sense of control. In particular when he lost his dominance streak he felt that Turkey could walk all over him and A) never notice and B) even if he did, completely miss the point. At the end of the month Zhores was just mentally focused on revenge, because if he wasn’t focused, he knew he’d lose his composure that that wouldn’t help.
So with this in mind he completely forgot Turkey’s birthday, like a godamn champion. (The reason the player forgot was because she had a date with a car’s fender, also like a godamn champion.)
The Talk that’s not really The Talk but it might be?
Zhores didn’t really intend to have the talk with Turkey. He just wanted Turkey to stop being such a fail at coping. The intent was that he’d push a few buttons, get Turkey on another topic, and then at least the idiot would be focused on something else a little more productive. Instead it took a sharp turn from “I know you totally would be banging Greece if you could.” Into “So here I’m calling your bluff with the option of discussing how I’d like some of those benefits back, please. But in a hopefully teasing way” to “Oh god. We’re having The Talk aren’t we? Why are we having the talk now? This isn’t how it normally turns out” to “I can’t avoid it any more, can I?...
-Fine. Start cutting yourself off so it doesn’t hurt. Act like this isn’t much, you’ve done it before.”
This isn’t to say he won’t be relieved if it turns out that Turkey miraculously didn’t get most of what he was saying. He’ll be thrilled. But at this point he doubts it, and he’s already started to pull himself away to think about things. His natural assumption is that he’s lost, and though Turkey says he’s not choosing, Turkey’s going to subconsciously choose later, and it’s not going to be him. The denial of the aforementioned “benefits” to Zhores not only includes sleeping arrangements, but also the personal space invasion that he’d started to enjoy, the form of communication they’d sometimes manage to get through to each other, and everything that fell in that space between “what friends do” and “what lovers do”. That part came as the shock to him, not as much the rest of it. He had long ago come to the idea that Turkey was going to choose Greece. Common sense and all logic determined that, at least in his mind. However being told he was effectively going to be downgraded even more was a hard blow for him. It never occurred to Zhores that Turkey would say anything like that after what he’d found out about Zhores. So emergency disconnect and douchebaggery happened, with Zhores possibly staying in the library at least for the night, and then the next day getting utterly plastered after work and hopefully camping out in the library again. Again. Zhores is a magical fucking unicorn when it comes to his Feelings and communication.
So what are his plans? I have no clue. On one hand he’s more likely to get caught up in work to keep him busy and on his off time probably think too much about the entire situation. When he’s not doing that he’ll be checking on the connections he does have, even if it’s a subconscious desire to make sure they haven’t deteriorated while he wasn’t looking. With Turkey himself it’s entirely up in the air. I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen. It could turn out bad, it could turn out good, but I’ve honestly lost track of any predictions about what’s next.
-Dear god it’s early. I should’ve just done this thing in ms-paint drawings with a lot of question marks.
In a lot of ways I feel guilty for writing this essay, and that’s one of the main reasons I’ve stalled on it. “Haven’t I mentioned Turkey in the last few essays? Didn’t I semi-focus on the country aspect of him and the Sekirei game? That’s got to count.” I say to myself, hoping that I can use this as an excuse. Clearly people don’t want to read even more about it. And then Cielo, hooker that she is, continues to ask questions in castchan about it. So if anything I’m shifting my “rehashing this subject” guilt onto Cielo and typing this thing up.
The Start
Zhores met Turkey back when he was more or less spying on countries out of habit and because he expected to be whisked back to his world in a month or two, because fate’s a bitch to him like that. Now he didn’t realize that Turkey was a country, and most of their early history I already went over in the Sekirei essay. Needless to say, the grand summary of the bond that’s remained is more like a boost and perhaps he subconsciously picks up tiny signals of emotion from Turkey once in awhile. That’s my excuse for Zhores being able to read Turkey’s maskless icons even though he’s masked all the time, and I’m sticking to it. Okay also there’s him picking up on body language, but that’s what Zhores just does. In any case! The feelings of desire and whatnot were really just a spark that got him interested. I could tell you now that if the bond didn’t exist on Zhores’s end, he’d react the same way.
But where the essay left off they managed to be… kinda domestic, at least by Zhores’ standards. While Zhores is a snarky bastard who is the unholy combo of a tsundere/kuudere/yandere threesome, Turkey for the most part was someone he considered a suitable roommate. Even if he fervently denied that he had any interest in him and that it was just mindless physical benefits.
Now one thing that I kind of assumed was that Zhores slept with Turkey during this period. It was economical, it was just starting to be winter (in fact, IIRC it was around this time of year), and they were friends with benefits anyway, so why would it be such a big deal? Howeveeeer, this may or may not be the case because there were a lot of things that me and Spain didn’t bring up, so who knows. Any way about it, Zhores was casually near Turkey, but it wasn’t quite a Thing yet. Sleeping alone wouldn’t be a big deal because Zhores had become used to it and viewed it as how he was completely over Louise and that he didn’t need a bedwarmer… he had it worse before, and that didn’t kill him, excexc.
Strangely I’m not sure when this bit of headcanon cropped up, but it’s something that I think is a small, but important detail for Zhores. After the war space was scarce, and so in the more heavily-populated cities you would have entire families renting out a room’s worth of space as an apartment. This meant siblings often slept together. Even though I headcanon that Zhores was raised by his sister, it still meant that there was probably only one bed in the room and the only time Zhores slept alone was when his sister was away. I could go into so much more rambling about communal apartments and that part of Soviet culture, but this essay is about Turkey. In any case Zhores mainly has slept alone when his sister was gone, in between missions when he didn’t bring someone home, and after Louise wasn’t around anymore. All in all rather lonely times, and considering how much they show Zhores lounging it up in bed with Louise and how much he enjoys being close to Louise when they’re in bed in the A ending, I figure I’m not too off-base.
But the point is, Zhores was developing real feelings for Turkey, but as a tsundere falling for a lovable douche, there was a lot of resistance on Zhores’s end… and a lot of cluelessness on Turkey’s end. I’m going to say though, that Turkey had nearly the patience of a saint with how much Zhores kept testing him, just waiting for Turkey to fail.
Cluebatting
The spot where Zhores really figures it out is hard to pinpoint, but it was after a long period where he slowly started to open up to Turkey more, and eventually begin to really trust him. I’d say there were a few times when he verbally confirmed that he had feelings for Turkey, but because of the tsun/clueless combo, it never really ended up being something that they talked about openly. However it wouldn’t matter anyway, the real honeymoon period was during the Sekirei game. There Turkey was a dick, but he understood Zhores’ feelings, compromised, was open in a lot of ways that he’s never been since, and he was even gentle in a number of ways. And I would say these hazy memories are what was responsible for a lot of Zhores’s issues about Turkey during this time. Zhores became more domestic and Turkey didn’t outwardly notice it. Zhores lightened up and showed his dere side and the reactions were the same as when Zhores was more closed off. Something subconsciously told him, “why aren’t things turning out different?” and the incongruity between what had occurred before and what was happening then just plain frustrated him. He knew that Turkey could be more open and less of a dick, even if he couldn’t rationally explain why. In a lot of ways Zhores started really pushing to get any reaction because at least it was something.
There were a few times when Turkey really showed he cared, and as much as Turkey put up with a load of crap, I’d say that it’s somewhat understandable that Zhores was always taken aback when Turkey was nice to him. He seemed to show the most emotion about heavy topics, and Zhores by nature tends not to broach those until he feels the matter is unavoidable. Mutual communication fail, they has it.
This is also when Zhores started being couched more often, to the point where Spain commented once that Zhores was sleeping with him like, once a week tops. I’d say this really drove home the idea of sleeping alone == punishment. This eventually led to a Talk about being couched, but that belongs in the next section.
Current events
Now this also is hazy, but I’d say this stage started around when Greece got in. Turkey and Zhores had some major rough spots, but they still spent a decent amount of time together and at least a good portion of Turkey’s douchebaggery was still focused on Zhores. With Greece that changed. Turkey had his brat! Turkey spent a lot of time catching up with the brat… and never really stopped. Instead of Zhores’ even getting a reaction, he felt well. Powerless. For all of Zhores’ problems, he’s not blind, at least mentally. He saw many of the same features he had in Greece, much like how he clued in to them when Turkey talked about “the brat”. In addition Greece and Turkey had a longer relationship together, and in short he knew that he was the interloper in the whole thing.
All in all, he felt effectively tossed aside.
Now sure Turkey still spent time with him, but when things came up Greece came first, and that became a solid trend. Zhores doesn’t have a issue with polygamy as long as all parties get roughly equal attention, but it didn’t feel like that to him in his admittedly paranoid mind. In many ways it brought back his worries about what occurred with Louise, and how he lost interest with Zhores. It’s also around here that Zhores finally talked with Turkey about the bed thing. Unlike the other conversations where Turkey clued in and showed that he cared, Turkey sort of missed the mark and built a bed for Zhores. This effectively meant Zhores slept alone the entire time, and when he made a valiant attempt to sleep with Turkey, he was unceremoniously denied in Turkey’s normal diskish ways. In short, Zhores felt like everything had failed and short of murdering an entire nation worth of people (horrible a person as he is, even Zhores has a moral or two), he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Turkey again. He even tried to get to know Greece better, but got the feeling that Greece wasn’t overly fond of him, and he just didn’t know how to strike up a conversation.
Then the dream event happened, and more or less Turkey saw an unfiltered, utterly damaged view of Zhores mental landscape, complete with overlaying issues about his obsolescence, guilt, and feelings about his relationships and past. It wasn’t pretty, it more or less lashed out at Turkey, and Turkey’s problem with picking up the small details that Zhores had often left led to terrible results. There was some catharsis! And I can say that Zhores’s mindscape was a lot healthier until about last night. Even though Zhores got stuck in the hospital and nearly died (a minor detail, really!), he did feel that he gained something and that he would be fine with being just friends with Turkey. A lot of it was swept under the rug, but that’s how Turkey rolls.
Still however there were issues, and October was a bit rough on him. He faced one of his fears (again), died twice, and in general felt like he was powerless to gain any major sense of control. In particular when he lost his dominance streak he felt that Turkey could walk all over him and A) never notice and B) even if he did, completely miss the point. At the end of the month Zhores was just mentally focused on revenge, because if he wasn’t focused, he knew he’d lose his composure that that wouldn’t help.
So with this in mind he completely forgot Turkey’s birthday, like a godamn champion. (The reason the player forgot was because she had a date with a car’s fender, also like a godamn champion.)
The Talk that’s not really The Talk but it might be?
Zhores didn’t really intend to have the talk with Turkey. He just wanted Turkey to stop being such a fail at coping. The intent was that he’d push a few buttons, get Turkey on another topic, and then at least the idiot would be focused on something else a little more productive. Instead it took a sharp turn from “I know you totally would be banging Greece if you could.” Into “So here I’m calling your bluff with the option of discussing how I’d like some of those benefits back, please. But in a hopefully teasing way” to “Oh god. We’re having The Talk aren’t we? Why are we having the talk now? This isn’t how it normally turns out” to “I can’t avoid it any more, can I?...
-Fine. Start cutting yourself off so it doesn’t hurt. Act like this isn’t much, you’ve done it before.”
This isn’t to say he won’t be relieved if it turns out that Turkey miraculously didn’t get most of what he was saying. He’ll be thrilled. But at this point he doubts it, and he’s already started to pull himself away to think about things. His natural assumption is that he’s lost, and though Turkey says he’s not choosing, Turkey’s going to subconsciously choose later, and it’s not going to be him. The denial of the aforementioned “benefits” to Zhores not only includes sleeping arrangements, but also the personal space invasion that he’d started to enjoy, the form of communication they’d sometimes manage to get through to each other, and everything that fell in that space between “what friends do” and “what lovers do”. That part came as the shock to him, not as much the rest of it. He had long ago come to the idea that Turkey was going to choose Greece. Common sense and all logic determined that, at least in his mind. However being told he was effectively going to be downgraded even more was a hard blow for him. It never occurred to Zhores that Turkey would say anything like that after what he’d found out about Zhores. So emergency disconnect and douchebaggery happened, with Zhores possibly staying in the library at least for the night, and then the next day getting utterly plastered after work and hopefully camping out in the library again. Again. Zhores is a magical fucking unicorn when it comes to his Feelings and communication.
So what are his plans? I have no clue. On one hand he’s more likely to get caught up in work to keep him busy and on his off time probably think too much about the entire situation. When he’s not doing that he’ll be checking on the connections he does have, even if it’s a subconscious desire to make sure they haven’t deteriorated while he wasn’t looking. With Turkey himself it’s entirely up in the air. I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen. It could turn out bad, it could turn out good, but I’ve honestly lost track of any predictions about what’s next.
-Dear god it’s early. I should’ve just done this thing in ms-paint drawings with a lot of question marks.