0dense | Entries tagged with chernobyl

In honor of archive being down for a hot sec this week, here's a handful of recs!

Chernobyl:
- Vienna Calling, by Jennytheshipper: AU and fixit: I'm always a sucker for spy stories, so this crossover with Le Carré's works is right up my alley. Also, I know I've pitched myself into a number of awfully sad fandoms, but this gets a happy ending that follows perfectly from the new setup!
The Terror:
- You Are Who You Say You Are, by scioscribe: AU and mild fixit?: Alright, I read this first before watching the series. Is that silly? Ah well! That time, I thought it was good that apparently this character got a chance to be his best self. Hickey, that's an alright guy, then. Buddy, was I wrong in canon! The contrast between this slightly shifty but improving guy and canon cannibal Cornelius is wild. It also well-inclined me towards Goodsir though, and that certainly held. Looking into such diametrically opposed points of view is a blast.
- viaticum, by Askance: heartwrenchingly canon: boi this devastated me. Harry's passing, through Jopson, Little, and Crozier's eyes. Bridgens is the constant at his side, of course. With restraint to more melodrama, I just gotta say that the last ounces of dignity and mercy they all show each other here are agonizingly beautiful.
- Working to Windward, by Gigi_Sinclair: canon compliant alibet with the addition of Little/Jopson: Gibson's take on what he sees fomenting. This poor sad little guy, just what goes on in his head. Principles of class solidarity, apparently, and how on earth to ever look out for each other even when everything else is going out the window. I suppose he's something of a cynic here, but more sad than anything else.
- let the river rush in, not wash away, by Kt_fairy: longer; Fitzier AU/postcanon fixit because we need some happiness here gosh darn: time for a (physically and emotionally) healthy and communicative relationship! Jimmy Fitz gets to address gender norms a bit! A fair dose of period-typical anxiety about it all, but we're in happy endings territory for once.
Lawrence of Arabia:
- After the Storm, by anon: postcanon, finally getting together: Yeah I know who the movie's named after, but Ali is absolutely the one who's grabbed me (I'm about three and a half hours in, it's just so hard to drag myself through all the emotions I know are right around the corner). I just need him to be happy again somehow! and lo!
For old time's sake!
- A Star to Steer By, by Dogmatix and Nocrumi: crossover/blending/AU: yall I've been reading this for about three years and it completed! Star Wars and Stargate isn't the most common crossover, but they've put so much worldbuilding (there's a whole side series) that everything flows together so satisfyingly. I want to go back and tell elementary school me that my two favorite sci fi stories get to share a story like this. For being so long, it's so easy to re- and reread :D
- Men of Legend, by hells_half_acre: crossover of Merlin and Supernatural: I heard hha is updating with a third installment of this series, and came back, and you know what, this holds up. I haven't been in either fandom for aaages, but it's good stuff! I probably even like a few characters more here than in canon; folks show up in good faith and it's so easy to engage with sincerity like that. Part 2 is particularly adorable, and part 3 is still coming out and I'm loving the unselfconscious affection everyone gets to toss back and forth. I think we could all do with more interactions written that way! (hha also did the Demented'verse, and I think I'll probably find myself there again soon)

In far other news, this week I found Hansel and Gretel in the friends of the library bookstore for $1 and it's one of those beautiful ancient Schirmer scores; there's no year on the title page but it has $2.50 on the cover and the copyright dates back to 1895 according to the bottom of the prelude, so I'm ballparking this side of but close to the turn of the 1900s?? The cover is coming off but in one whole unit and the pages are all still bound together, and the only markings are red pencil under Hansel's part, so all considered I think it's in great shape! I'll find some time to sit down and read it properly and find some short pieces to work on, and I have my pick of either Hansel or the Witch :D (I know we live in the internet era and IMSLP is a blessing, but I absolutely couldn't pass it up!)

Current Music: quartet at the ballet - anastasia obc

hello world!

so here's the sitch - I really want a secret santa-style event to exist for Chernobyl, but I haven't seen one around yet. so I figure I'll give it a go! But, I have never participated in a fic exchange in any capacity. I assume that the majority of the mod's responsibilities go along the lines of promotion, coordination of prompts and fillers, accountability check-ins, and final dissemination, but what really goes on behind the scenes? Are there any mods out there who could advise?? ~~I think there's still time to get the ball rolling for a new year's day unveiling (no there's not)~~, but I don't actually know what I'm doing!

so far, I'm thinking it should have:

base on DW for archiving, mirroring on tumblr for promotion
- fills optimally also hosted on ao3, I assume; anon is an option or folks can chat me up for add codes
  - imgur pathway for art
  - vimeo or unlisted youtube pathway for vids
- anon on for folks who don't have an account and really don't want to make one for some reason? as long as everyone picks up a callsign? is this asking for trouble? idk
all deadlines operating in GMT
registration through a google form
- including option to pitch-hit
- communicate by email, I presume? if not everyone has a DW, and seeing as tumblr's comms Suck. is this how it's done?
- I expect a lot of admin will happen in gsheets
- ~~assign every participant a number that only they and the mod/s know and keep a public sheet of "# is assigned [prompt]" for anonymous reference as necessary?~~
- ~~should mod/s match people up, or do people claim on a first-come first-serve basis? how does this work best??~~
  - claim-style: everyone submits two prompts that they would be equally interested in, with differing tones (one ship, one gen, or within a ship, one angst or kink and one WAFF) and their hard nos. Everyone goes by a pseudonym. Everyone picks two that they would be equally interested in filling. Mod/s match by interest, not history. At the end, the announcement goes out, Nickname aka Realname wrote Fic/Thing for Nickname aka Realname
- ~~because some folks can prompt for adult materials, I think it'd be best to ask for everyone's ages, to keep from matching those prompts to anyone under 18~~
  - 18+, keep things simple
- fills can look like:
  - ≥1,000 words
  - ≥10 minutes of fic, not including intro/credits
  - flat colors or shaded drawings, or equivalent in other media
  - open to crossovers, aus, etc
  - any rating, any ship
    - hard no on incest, pedophilia, etc; I can't imagine what would bring that here but just, hard no.
I know it's not standard, but I want to include some sort of HHA. I haven't turned it into official terms yet, but along the lines of: all participants, regardless of role, make no assumption of historical accuracy / all events and characters present in exchange materials shall be taken as describing the 2019 miniseries and not the 1986 disaster / the good old boilerplate "the characters and events in this event are fictitious; any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by participants regardless of role" / consumption of exchange materials is taken at the reader's own descretion and no exchange participant shall be held for any subsequent offense on another's behalf
- I know the line between fic and rpf is hazy as anything and I haven't worked out clearer terms yet, but let's keep our noses clean
  - I don't mean to be slamming rpf, I'm just picking a battle at a time
  - if folks do want to integrate historical materials, that's of course fine, as long as the result is based more on the show than anything else
  - 'exactly what constitutes rpf' is such a mess, let's hash that out some time
- also, I know that this won't make a real difference if someone wants to start #drama, and that none of this requires a waiver, but it doesn't hurt to be clear, right?
- as any sort of contract, this obviously doesn't hold up for peanuts, but specificity is my best friend against general anxiety, so why not throw it in
standards based on flyingcarpet's writeup
- no fills released until they're all in

Also. I know I'm bringing this to the table, but my current schedule is already pushing me to the brink. If this happens, I wouldn't want it to fall through because I'm overwhelmed by life things. I don't even know what an admin's job looks like yet, but if anyone wants to chime in on modding, that's probably the only way I could commit to it. I'd really like to see this happen! Let's give it the best shot possible!

For now, I'm putting a pin in

chernobyl_fic_exchange and fingers crossed that this can bloom!

potted_music ,

brewsternorth ,

gwinny3k , thoughts??

edit: adding the media pathways, striking and attempting to streamline age limits and the selection process. Also, I'm not tabling this forever, but the new year's deadline is out; if this does happen, I can't put myself on a crunch. Maybe brainstorming will help! I do certainly appreciate the warnings before I fling myself off the deep end lol! it'll just certainly take more consideration.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: bob cooney's miracle

I just really hope I can keep writing during the semester! But also I was running the office today, soooo we'll see :?

For now, here's what I've got for the Tarakanov wip -

They’d been in each other’s pockets for far too long. He shook his head and turned back in towards the office. Nikolai was still staring at the door.

“I can't tell, for the utter life of me, whether he's the smartest idiot or stupidest genius I've ever heard speak,” he marvelled.
Boris pulled back a chair and sat down heavily at the table. “Believe me, I know what you mean.”

“Oh, I believe you, no doubt about that. And you say he's always been like this?”

“From day one. Do you know what he did, the first time I met him?”

Nikolai shook his head.

“Guess.”

“Told the west that we're working on reparations.”

Boris groaned, dropping his chin and dragging a hand down his face. “No. God, no, I'd forgotten about that.”

1) fulltext of the wip:
( Read more... )

2) intended outline
( Read more... )

3) citations so far
( Read more... )

4) writing process thoughts and struggles
( Read more... )

If someone's interested in picking up where I've left off, by all means drop me a line! Or for characterization or concrit and things - I've been pretty busy lately, but I'm still very much invested in this fandom ;D hmu!

Current Location: when the office is closed I am my own king
Current Music: wish I knew you - revivalists

Got a work event tomorrow, as we step into the next phase of things, and I'm looking forward to our new structure and all, but also there's the obligatory Madcap Anxiety of all changes in routine. Ai!!

Anyway, to combat that, I chipped away a little more at the Toptunov project! Whether or not I get this to a finished state, a teaser -

As an assistant technician, the majority of Leonid's shifts were paired with the SIURs, instead of directly with Alexander. Andrei Maximovich Glukhov pop-quizzed him on acronyms between maneuvers, and Yuri Danilovich, from the first tour, called it a symphony.

“Have you played piano?” he had asked, early on. He had splayed his fingers over the control panel, watching the steady flickers on the board above them. “A pipe organ might be more accurate, but we’re playing a quartet for Kyiv, here,” he had suggested, patting the desk affectionately.

“In a C sharp,” Leonid had agreed. Yuri had looked at him skeptically. “Down below, the turbines put off around 40 hertz, at 3,000 megawatts. I wrote my thesis on Chernobyl’s acoustics,” he had explained, and the SIUR had laughed out loud in astonishment when he realized Leonid was being serious.

“In that case, Maestro, play us a coolant rod circulation.”

Because did you know, but he did write his thesis on using harmonics to monitor the reactor, which, combined with Hildur’s choice to record the Ignalina plant, means that I spent the evening with the Chernobyl soundtrack trying to decide what key it operates in. Unfortunately, real confidence attempting to ascribe classical notation to something that was not designed as an instrument is beyond me (see: my frustration at what defines ‘music’ all together); without tuning, we’re in chromatic territory at best, but that feels like a cop-out. Nevertheless, and despite this, I decided that the inside of the reactor (Door, Turbine Hall, Pump Room, Gallery) is closest to an harmonic minor environment. Ofc, no, Ignalina wasn’t running at all when Hildur went to record, so I have no idea what it would really resonate like while operating, but if the pitches present in the soundtrack can be taken as representative of the spacial acoustics, I’m gonna go so far as to say that C# harmonic minor is possible in an RBMK reactor.

(Pulling exact pitches out of the soundtrack is interesting because it isn’t founded in notes, it comes from textures. An E in my notation can be expressed three ways simultaneously (Turbine Hall), according tone and placement. It’s hard for me to call the whistling of an industrial space a gliss, though.)

Current Music: Гололед

devastating news, folks - just found out one of the insert songs in Chernobyl is this cheery little number:

"Таганка" (Watch on YouTube)

The chorus filters in through the background as Legasov is parking himself at the Polissya's bar and embarking on his career of lies, stepping into the KGB's embrace. And it's a song about the Tagansky prison, and the lyrics are:

Цыганка с картами, дорога дальняя. (G*psy with cards, the road is distant.)

Дорога дальняя, казенный дом. (The road is distant, to a government house.)

Быть может старая, тюрьма центральная (Perhaps the old, central prison)

Меня, мальчишечку, по новой ждет. (Is waiting for me, the boy, again.)

Таганка, все ночи, полные огня, (Taganka, all nights full of fire)

Таганка, зачем сгубила ты меня? (Taganka, why did you ruin me?)

Таганка, я твой бессменный арестант, (Taganka, I am your permanent prisoner,)

Погибли юность и талант в твоих стенах. (Youth and talent in your walls perished.)

Also distressing: the song that was on the radio as Pavel and Bacho and co. were burying the animals -

Чёрный ворон, (Black raven)
Что ж ты вьёшься надо моею головой? (Why do you circle over my head?)

Ты добычи не дождёшься, (You won't have your prey,)

Чёрный ворон, я не твой (Black raven, I'm not yours)

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD;

I will freely admit to taking sides on the fight re. the Chernobyl soundtrack - to whit, sound design is an art, but not music per se - but I do think that the audio aspects were very thoughtfully put together. My major point of contention is that music should be able to stand on its own terms; if a work was only designed for use a specific context, to the extent that it cannot be properly appreciated outside of said context, it lacks its own specifically musical integrity.* However, it is absolutely excellent in context. The texture and atmosphere that Hildur has created could not have been replicated on traditional instruments; she has crafted an audio landscape out of the physical environment of a nuclear reactor and I for one am delighted by this. And the few songs that were chosen? Everything about Vichnaya Pamyat?? *kisses fingers*

(*1) does this mean I don't think all movie soundtracks count? frankly no, I don't; Klaus Badelt, Hans Zimmer, Michael Giacchino, and so on can indeed bite me. Atli is on real thin ice.
2) what about things like ballet scores? Opera is meant to be in context, is it lacking? I'm gonna say no, they're not necessarily lacking, because something can be designed for context but still capable of standing outside it. They don't need an explanation before appreciation.
I am not an aesthete by studies but I was raised on a steady diet of kqed and that doesn't rub off quickly)

Current Music: Я ЗНАЮ, МИЛАЯ, БОЛЬШЕ НЕ ВСТРЕТИМСЯ / ДОРОГИ РАЗНЫЕ НАМ СУЖДЕНЫ

So since this year, I've quit making original posts on tumblr, partially in protest of the nippocalypse, partially to practice disengaging from it as a social media platform, and partially because if it does finally go down, I don't want to lose my recorded train of thoughts.
John Mulaney Voice: but then, this week, the strangest thing happened!
To repost, I've jumped into the waters of tumblr fandom, and it's largely been great for meta! Analysis is so much easier than fic :_D I'll drag the creative words out of myself somehow though!

1) gwinny3k asked: I love the idea of Pikalov briefing Tarakanov. Passing his notes! Giving him some tips on how to handle Valery. (Boris is a total comrade, don't worry about him, but Legasov...)
tumblr link
dw repost: ( Read more... )

2) Anonymous asked: re Tarakanov being all "Boris come take yo boy I can't stand a moment longer with him" Legasov seems like the type to overwork, get cranky and frustrated in the morning when everyone just came in but he hasn't left in two days. Stands to reason local military leader shouldn't manhandle the scientists - no matter how very much he wants to - so "Go tell comrade Shcherbina his scientist is about to attempt to call-up General Secretary again." 1/2

tumblr link
dw repost: ( Read more... )

3) Anonymous asked: Well. The way show shown it biorobots are both Tarakanov and Legasov failures. Science has no way to deal with the fallout nor does military technology. It was fantastic that moonrovers worked but both Shcherbina and Legasov clearly expected Tatakanov to have access to some classified technology and while he's came up with some ideas they ended up just opting for killing people because literally nothing else was there. I doubt he held biorobots against Legasov is me point. Not after the Joker.

tumblr link
dw repost: ( Read more... )

4) Anonymous asked: Same anon as re Tarakanov. Wow you have a whole headcanon as to why he doesn't like Valery and I mean you do you but I don't think one needs to be emotionally involved to dislike the show!Legasov. He's weird. He barely drinks. He smokes but that only means he lived through the 60's. His idea of humor is correcting rhetorical statements and he's liable to fly off into unnecessarily detailed explanations when he's nervous. And he's nervous all the time. This is not how Russians are supposed to be.

tumblr link
dw repost: ( Read more... )

5) Anonymous asked: Space race was the shit yo. These men grew up in the 60's. As in were young men then. I don't think there was a soul left in most desolated reaches of Sybir that wasn't cross-pollinated with space fever. If you do a bit of googling you will find yurts build by remote tribes that still have a little shrines of Yuri Gagarin set up. Not to mention space exploration was really a point of national pride. And there was not much to be proud of in the 70's. 1/2

tumblr link
dw repost: ( Read more... )
(nb that I got shirty here and it's not my best showing. I just don't have the extra resources on hand to be an ethics instructor for the internet; I come here to turn my brain down.)

6) Anonymous asked: It's cute how we basically agree re Tarakanov possible attitude towards Legasov after biorobots but from opposite sides and for different reasons. Re Legasov psychology - as a character I don't know if it makes sense to psychoanalyze him. Personally I completely lost my grasp on him three separate times. First with the biorobots. It was really like thunder. Then when it turned out he knew what was up with the reactor before he even sent Ulana out into the world. And the third time when Ulana 1/2
tumblr link
dw repost: ( Read more... )

7) pottedmusic replied to your post “It’s cute how we basically agree re Tarakanov possible attitude…”
tumblr link
dw repost: ( Read more... )

Current Music: Bakht Arif - Zombie (Cover)

For some people the day comes

when they have to declare the great Yes

or the great No. It’s clear at once who has the Yes

ready within him; and saying it,

he goes from honor to honor, strong in his conviction.

He who refuses does not repent. Asked again,

he’d still say no. Yet that no—the right no—

drags him down all his life.

C.P. Cavafy

trans. Edmund Keeley
from Selected Poems, 1975

So I'm not actually usually one for watching shows at all, but this year the two major series I've gotten into have been Nirvana in Fire and HBO's Chernobyl. On the surface, that should be a coincidence - what could a wuxia show in something like 500 AD have to do with Ukraine in 1986? - but there's a decent chance my thesis will end up being something on epistemic authority and the abuses thereof. And as such, I haven't been able to disassociate the two from each other.

The central question of Chernobyl is, obviously, the cost of lies. NiF is less explicit than Legasov's monologues, but my elevator pitch of the show has been: Once upon a time, the emperor of a nation endorsed a lie that killed 70k people, and one survivor is trying to prove their innocence.

"Once, a government tried to cover up how it could have lead to the awful death of a great number of it's people, who generally acted in good faith but were backed against a wall by misinformation. Now, we have a lead who will gather and present testimony that exposes the system, before choosing to die on their own terms instead of succumbing to their own illness from the original catastrophe. We will explore, but are not limited to, the inevitable instability of a nation that does not place their people's best interests paramount, the failure of censorship, and the spectre of state police."

For such outwardly dissimilar shows, that's a heck of a number of parallels.

Obviously, the two shows are wildly different in timbre, but, obligations of genre aside, even the differing mechanics of length and scope speak to similar issues. NiF takes 54 episodes because Mei Changsu isn't just taking the short route of regicide to leave Jingyan as the only remaining option, he's taking the effort to reform the nation from the corruption that enabled and benefited from the instability of the last generation of leadership. He has a list of specific targets, but a whole system to address. 54 episodes gives him time to do that.

Chernobyl jumps straight to a show trial, because scapegoats are easiest and Bryukhanov, Fomin, and Dyatlov are guilt magnets. Still, though, Legasov shrugs and points out - Dyatlov acted in faith of the tools he believed he had, but it wasn't his fault that the machine of the state had decided to cut corners, instead. But five hours isn't enough time to address an entire government the way Mei Changsu did, and so Chernobyl ends before we see the return on what the show has cost our lead.

Still, allowing NiF the space of 54 episodes to get there, the two do follow the same general structure. Craig Mazin calls his show a murder mystery (podcast 5, 11:12), and both shows aren't as much a 'whodunnit' as 'how-and-whydunnit'. The catastrophe itself can only be addressed if the prior circumstances are brought to light as well, and only then can the people who were directly involved take the appropriate amount of blame. 'How did we get to the point where this was possible, and why did it end up happening" is a much bigger question than the element of "Who had their hand on the blade/button/pen that signed everything into action". If the problems at hand really were so simple as to be possibly addressed by the immediate removal of a handful of administrators, the story would be so straightforward as not to be interesting in the first place. But if you want to try to make it impossible for the circumstances that allowed for those administrators to cause harm to return in the first place, you've got a great deal more work cut out for yourself.

That's the project we follow our leads through. We have faith that our stories' arcs will lead us to our heroes preservering, but the path to making narratives align with reality is harrowing. If we want the rewards of justice, we must commit to the harrowing ordeal of making the truth known. Chernobyl's climax takes place over a courtroom, where a high-ranking official interrupts proceedings to allow crucial testimony to be heard; in NiF, the ministers rise in opposition to their emperor, petitioning for a case to be re-opened in order to account for corrected evidence.

This is the Great No that I mean with Cavafy's poem. The rejection of what is easy and false, regardless of the danger it places the speaker in. The courage to be the one who drags wrongdoings into the light, no matter what or who is to blame; even if they were committed by a member of your family, or you were once complicit yourself. There is a cost, yes, imposed even before knowing what the outcome will be. For the rest of their life, the speaker will carry that action, just as they would have had to bear the sin of their inaction.

There is always the temptation to be passive. Lin Shu already died in the mountains, and Mei Changsu is his spectre; as Legasov said, is that not enough? But no, Khomyuk answers, it is not. In the name of a world where no one should have to suffer in that way again, it is not.

At the end of the day, Legasov and Mei Changsu both die before they see the full impact of their efforts. They have given themselves to the project of a better world, but such change has not been achieved yet. Instead, they must trust in the friends they met along that journey to continue the work, and the basic decency of strangers not to make the mistakes of the past.

I will not say that both shows are hopeful, because Chernobyl is so baldly distressing that I can't say it with a straight face. But, I will say that they both do turn on a faith in, if not a collective entity such as humanity, people themselves. That, when a tragedy occurs, there will be people who turn and face it. That people are good and brave enough to shoulder personal consequences, so that others will be granted a better chance. That, on balance, people don't want to cause harm to others, and will ultimately correct loopholes and shortcomings that allow harm to occur. People may not be particularly dignified or excited when it comes to certain steps, but they will carry on. And, despite everything, it will be worth something. For all that the stories approach from such different backgrounds, what a good aesop to agree on.

Obviously, the two sharing themes doesn’t mean anything more than that the abuse of epistemic authority is a popular topic for discussion, and the fact that I enjoy them both doesn’t mean everyone would; the target audiences are entirely different. But if people did like the themes in one, and have an open mind, I hope they might like or be interested in the other as well.

I've been convincing myself of this for a while now, so I hope it still makes sense. Also, I've had that time to accumulate bits of media that seem to apply to both of them, like Cavafy's poem, so:

(Not according to musical or cultural context:)

It's Only, by Odesza.
- Originally, I heard this as Lin Chen forcing himself to accept Mei Changsu's mortality, but "I heard the news today that you weren't mine to save / I hope that you're comfortable in the quiet plastic grave" is also very Open Wide O Earth
Two Slow Dancers, by Mitski
- For NiF, Jingyan and his xiao Shu; if only they could stay together, if only life and time weren't tearing them apart; "It would be a hundred times easier, if we were young again"
- For Chernobyl, Alex Mycravatundone on tumblr pointed out "And the ground has been slowly pulling us back down / You see it on both our skin / We get a few years and then it wants us back" for the aftermath
Hymn to Breaking Strain, by Kipling, and as sung by Leslie Fish and Julia Ecklar
- This one tends towards Chernobyl, but can potentially be NiF as well, particularly when Mei Changsu has to face his own internalised abelism.
- We only of Creation / (Oh, luckier the bridge and rail) / Abide the twin damnation / To fail and know we fail. / Yet we - by which sole token / We know we once were Gods / Take shame in being broken / However great the odds / (The burden of the odds.)
Hope On Fire, by Vienna Teng
- In return, more NiF, but with enough grit for Chernobyl as well
- you're a one-man shift in the weather (MCS, Legasov), you're the woman who just won't sell (Nihuang, Khomyuk), climbing up and ringing the bell (Jingyan, Shcherbina)
In Blackwater Woods, by Mary Oliver
- Yes, this is the one that ends with the three things one must be able to do with what is mortal, but before loss, we can appreciate the world as it was once.
The Envoy of Mr. Cogito, by Zbigniew Herbert
- you were saved not in order to live / you have little time you must give testimony
- ohhhhhhhhhh
I have more collected Edna St.Vincent Millay than other poets, so correspondingly more of her; allow me the pastoralism:
- Spring
  - Jingyan spent 12 years growing bitter, but in light of Chernobyl,"To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough" takes on another whole attitude
- Passer Mortuus Est
  - The last stanza says 'love', but I think it could apply to shared endeavor at large. Even though we do perish, can't we still have been worth something at all?
- The Plum-Gatherer
  - The plum-trees are barren now and the black knot is upon them / that stood so white in spring. / I would give to recall the sweetness and the frost of the lost blue plums, / anything, anything.

(Also, this is obvious in the case of NiF, but the Chernobyl and names I drop here are re the story, not history. I'm looking at Mazin's work of fiction, not applying this lens to the real events.)

Current Music: tu reviendras et voudras m'enfermer dans tes bras

(ten fathoms deep in care / ten fathoms down in an element denser than air)

-Edna St Vincent Millay, Above These Cares

Skurge Voice: Behold!
my latest fic: the pressure that obtains (2654 words). gen, teen and up, no archive warnings apply, but heads up for discussion of valery's early moves towards suicidal behavior: somewhere back down the line I heard that he wouldn't take his dosimeter badge with him everywhere onsite, and I think I had to literally stare at the wall for a good moment after that. So, I had to explore that.

This is the first of the two I started back at the end of may before the series wrapped up, and >22.1% was fun but I feel like this one goes much deeper. I got pointers from Caterina, tryingtobealwaystrying, and Cam, and think it all came together in the end!
I also had this much longer to muck about in background reading, and came up with even more than could fit in the post-text note box on archive, so here we have, in full:

Radiation exposure symptoms rundown*: Tan (1), sore throat (2), loss of appetite (2), pancreatitis (pain that lets up when leaning forward) (at a certain point, eating can have severely negative consequences, but that’s in later stages) (2), insomnia (anxiety, nicotine, radiation) (1, 2). Alopecia (shown in the first episode) is starting to bend the rules, waiting as long as he did. Light sensitivity and difficulty in decontaminating thicker skin eg the palms are general side-effects of radiation exposure.

*I don’t want to actually get into his serious symptoms. And I don’t know the exact timeline of when each would start to manifest. This is as much detail as I want to get into, right here, but I also don’t want to seem like I’m pulling them out of the air for the text.

“The on-site head of the commission rotated every two weeks starting 9 May 1986, with various deputy premiers serving their turn as director. These included Ivan Silayev, Yuriy Maslyukov, Lev Voronin, Vladimir Gusev, Genadiy Vedernikov, and Boris Shcherbina.” (3) Shcherbina was also hospitalized sometime around early June, for probable-but-not-confirmed radiation sickness (4), so I guess that puts this sometime past August, at least. But I’m not really counting like that; if Legasov only started to take ill when his hair fell out after several months, movie magic is certainly in effect and things matter less and less. Exactly how much time is Legasov taking offsite? That information has to exist somewhere, but idk, I’m only a pendant when it’s convenient; if I can shape around it that’s nice but I’m not holding to it.

I have no idea what Silayev was like. But he’s first on the list, so I pulled him out.

Izyumov isn’t anyone at all. But speaking of him, now that I look at when I’ve ballparked this, there was actually a cement shortage in the Ukraine sometime in late August 1986 (5), which is why having proquest and insomnia is a perilous combo for me. So who knows, maybe they’re related. Really, I was just thinking about the high-voc stuff that cures quicker vs the kinds used in domestic structures.

Works cited:

Yaroshevsky, Alexey. “Chernobyl blast:Valery Legasov's battle”. RT. TV-Novosti, pub. 27 Apr, 2008. Ed. 28 Apr, 2008. via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpvvccmG2dE
Самоделова, Светлана. “Как убивали академика Легасова, который провел собственное расследование Чернобыльской катастрофы” Mk.Ru. Московский комсомолец, 26 апреля 2017 https://www.mk.ru/social/2017/04/25/kak-ubivali-akademika-legasova-kotoryy-provel-sobstvennoe-rassledovanie-chernobylskoy-katastrofy.html
1. Samodelova, Svetlana. Trans. Google Translate. “How Academician Legasov was killed, who conducted his own investigation of the Chernobyl disaster.” Mk.Ru. Moskovsky Komsomolets, 26 April 2017
2. I know gtranslate is far from perfect, but I’ve had luck with it for technical jargon despite syntax issues, and ‘myelocytes’ is pretty unambiguous, so I’m rolling with it but will defer to a better translation as soon as it exists
3. NB that this one also talks about the dosimeter issue itself
USA. CIA: Directorate of Intelligence. The Chernobyl’ Accident: Social And Political Implications [redacted]: A Research Paper. December 1987. As sanitized for release 2012/09/12. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP08S01350R000300900002-4.pdf. Also has a code SOV87-100786, fwiw. Thank you someone for getting an FOIA on this, but it’s also a complete headtrip.
Schmemann, Serge, "CHERNOBYL MANAGERS PUNISHED PRAVDA: SOME WORKERS MISSING, 'ON THE RUN'" Orlando Sentinel, Jun 16, 1986, pp. A1. ProQuest, doc id 276842170
Peracchio, Adrian "ANALYSIS Nuclear Optimism, Despite Chernobyl." Newsday, Aug 31, 1986, pp. 4. ProQuest, doc id 285373727

Further reading:

For a further account of the dosimeter issue, I’ve been directed to Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe, by Serhii Plokhy, published 2018, though I haven’t found a copy yet myself. But the reviews are all good.
- Thank you tryingtobealwaystrying to setting me on this track; I think their post was the first place I heard about the dosimeter shenanigans back when, and then they were super encouraging on the research front!

speaking of my dive into the research deep end, I of course gave my local library a gander. And what do you know, but every reputable material on Chernobyl is checked out and has a waitlist. Now, this is terribly inconvenient for me personally, but honestly I love it so much - there are 27 whole people on one waitlist, that's such an excellent problem to have. I love this city and how curious we are, and I'm so glad that this show that is raging against passively absorbing a convenient position is inspiring people to look further. Librarians of the world, I hope you know how much I admire your mission.

Current Music: hairpin turns - the national

Ulana Khomyuk voice: I'm sorry. But it depends who’s asking.

Written largely over the week of 3-8 june, when it was too hot to sleep and my room in LA didn’t have internet. Now, it's still too hot to sleep but I can write and post online. As such, the only references I’m pulling from are the primary sources of the scripts (found at https://johnaugust.com/library) and the podcast transcripts I pulled off of youtube.
I think the conversation about people being disappointed in or confused by the last episode of Chernobyl has largely dissipated, and I’m certainly not straying back into tumblr with this because no one asked for more fuel on that fire, but I put together a good long ramble of meta and I’m not throwing it aside:

So, I talked about this in the tags of a few tumblr posts already, but in the interest of having everything a) in one place and b) actually tied together, here's a more organized presentation on my take coming out of the chernobyl miniseries. I accidentally sorta started something on the htp server, so that was my reminder to express myself in a more concrete way.

First up, I'm going to say all of this in the most charitable of fashions, because I think this is a great miniseries.
( Part 1 )

But, I also feel like at the end of the day the tone shifted strongly in the last episode and really tipped Mazin's hand.
( Part 2 )

So, though, these issues come from the way it was either trying or expected to be too many things. Hear me out.
( Part 3 )

...Which I think is the struggle of writing anything based on matters of historical account.
This is a broad statement and I mean it. It’s also more related to what the htp thing was about, so that’s why it goes in this discussion as well.
( Part 4 )

Also, a personal aside.
( PS )

Current Location: it's over 80F at past 1:30am and I'm lying on the ground like some sloth

Buut I have got just under of 500 words of fic based on Valery Legasov being generally a sad dude: >22.1% on ao3, no archive warnings apply, gen, etc. Would fit decently somewhere in episode 4 but it really doesn't matter. Generally as upbeat as the show can be, which is to say, not really at all.
To be frank I'm less shaking my head at myself for engaging in the chernobyl miniseries like this; I know there's folks up in arms about historical people but I'm not bothered about that. Knowing the difference between fact and fiction is the meat and potatoes of this show, let's chill. No, I'm shaking my head at the fact that I had to go and cite sources. for fic! I'm done with finals! I don't need to be doing this! but, I did:

Cooper, Richard. "Smoking in the Soviet Union." British Medical Journal, v.285, 21 Aug 1982: 549-551. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/aed6/f80070a0148217b0b64db2316b0662a663d8.pdf
Gilmore, Anna et al. “Prevalence of smoking in 8 countries of the former Soviet Union: results from the living conditions, lifestyles and health study.” American journal of public health vol. 94,12 (2004): 2177-87. doi:10.2105/ajph.94.12.2177 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448609/
Starks, Tricia A. “A Revolutionary Attack on Tobacco: Bolshevik Antismoking Campaigns in the 1920s.” American journal of public health vol. 107,11 (2017): 1711-1717. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2017.304048 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5637673/
Thun, Michael J et al. “Lung cancer occurrence in never-smokers: an analysis of 13 cohorts and 22 cancer registry studies.” PLoS medicine vol. 5,9 (2008): e185. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050185 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2531137/

Also, this is unrelated, but - I applied for a promotion! it got hairy for a minute when the server had a fit, but it's out of my hands and my supervisor will read it and we'll go from there!
I do feel like the right person for this job. Which is incredible in the first place, considering how terrified I was to step in as a volunteer just last fall. But I've grown, and it's been thanks to this office. I'll get to maintain my position if I don't get the promotion, so it's not like I'll be losing out on this place, but I want to do right by it, and that means the promotion. Hey, if there's someone more qualified who waltzes in, sure, and I have faith that my supervisor will pick a decent person! But if that means me, let's do it!

Current Music: Will Jay - Talking In Your Sleep

Tonight's highlights from the Chernobyl podcast:

"The Chernobyl Podcast | Part Three | HBO" (Watch on YouTube)

Peter from Wait Wait Don't Tell me defending radio plays ;D
I'm very glad to hear about the abject avoidance of gratuitous horror, that the worst parts weren't ever even filmed. It's one thing to have the acting response, but no one went into the worst makeup in the first place. There's a line before sensationalism, and I'm glad they didn't want to cross that.
and the scientist as the pursuer of truth, I exclaim, as I skitter away from writing about testimonial in/justice:

35:48 CRAIG: But this notion of what it means to be a scientist...and what it means to pursue the truth...is at the center of all of this. And there is a moment immediately following it where Khomyuk tells Legasov, listen, this is what they said. They said that they did shut the reactor down. They pressed AZ-5 and then it exploded. And you see on Legasov's face a very strange reaction which Jared Harris performed to perfection. And it is a sense-- we have at least, even if Khomyuk doesn't notice it, that this is not altogether shocking to him. [... He] is starting to suddenly realize something and it is making him feel a bit sick. And yet what he says to her after is, "Pursue this at all cost, no matter who is to blame."

PETER: Right.

CRAIG: And so, there is the scientist saying, "Regardless of how I feel, and regardless of how this turns out, the truth must be told."

PETER: Right, there's obviously a character moment there for both of them as you just described. But the series began with the words, "What are the cost of lies?"

CRAIG: Right.

PETER: So, it almost seems as if this is a counterpoint to that. Like-- because lies, as we have seen and we'll see more of, are so devastating, the only response to that problem is to seek the truth no matter what.

Also I'm making Friendly Quiche, because no procrastination spat is complete without some anxious cooking! Friendly Quiche is an alsacienne, made in the name of my good friend who doesn't eat cheese :) It's not a quick bake, but the prep is simple and it's just a few familiar ingredients - all I got at the store today today was pie crust, to supplement the eggs, milk, onion, and bacon:
( recipe under the cut! )

Current Mood: anxious

VALERY LEGASOV: What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies... then we no longer recognize the truth at all. What can we do then?

sooo I let youtube run while I was doing some chores, and ended up on this BTS/dev interview between the writer for a new series and Peter from Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and I ended up hooked:

"The Chernobyl Podcast | Part One | HBO" (Watch on YouTube)

00:30: PETER SAGAL: The intent here is to talk with Craig about where the show came from, why he created it, the experience of making it, and how closely the docudrama ... how closely it tracks real history, where it differs and why, and ultimately, why it was made at this time and place?

CRAIG MAZIN: Yeah, and of those many wonderful reasons to do this, the one that was most important to me from the jump was a chance to set the record straight about what we do that is very accurate to history, what we do that is a little bit sideways to it, and what we do to compress or change, in no small part because the show is essentially about the cost of lies.
( 5 minutes of transcript under the cut for length )

07:03: PETER: So, when you were pitching this idea to HBO and Sky, how were you presenting it as something that people would want to-- and even need to-- watch?

CRAIG: The way I like to think of it is, what is the relevance to everyone?
PETER: Right.
CRAIG: I mean, ultimately, we can tell any particular story, but there needs to be some sort of universal relevance or it just becomes a story in and of itself about the event, which... At that point, I refer to those things as homework. I'm not interested in making homework for people. The reason that I was compelled to write about Chernobyl was... I mean, in part because it was filling in these large gaps of a story that we all knew and yet didn't know, but primarily... it's because it is a story about the cost of lies. This is the first line of the whole show, and this is the theme that we are going to continue with as people watch these episodes: that when people choose to lie, and when people choose to believe the lie and when everyone engages in a very... kind of passive conspiracy to promote the lie over the truth, we can get away with it for a very long time, but the truth just doesn't care. And it will get you in the end. And the people that suffer, ultimately, are not the people that are telling the lie.

PETER: Right.
CRAIG: It's everyone else. And that is where we start to see real truth: in the behavior of human beings who are motivated to save their fellow men, their fellow women, their loved ones, that's where truth is. And so, for me - and this, by the way, was before our entire planet seemed to become engulfed in a war on truth - for me, this was an important kind of story to tell about the value of truth versus narrative.

PETER: Right.
CRAIG: Which because we are, I think... as humans, we are so susceptible to storytelling. It's why we tell stories. We like them. Stories are sometimes very good ways of conveying interesting truths and facts... but, just as simply, stories can be weaponized against us to teach us and tell us anything. So, of course, I choose narrative to tell an anti-narrative story, but that's why I think this is relevant now. Maybe more relevant now - In fact, yes. Definitely more relevant now than it was when I started writing it.
PETER: Which was - and I think we should just point this out - before the 2016 elections.

CRAIG: Yes, it was. I think I started in 2015 on the writing, yeah.
PETER: Yeah, because I will say, speaking for myself, it's impossible to watch this miniseries with its tale of government malfeasance and lies and bureaucratic... let's just say, incentives....
CRAIG: Mm-hmm.
PETER: ...taking the place of, shall we say, other motives without thinking about what's going on in America and across the world today.

and anyway I don't have HBO so I'm not gonna end up getting to actually watch this, but wow, if this is what the writer means to be talking about, I'm so into this