The Same "he". To Me

UPD from the field:

The ad says: "Will you dare to try it?"

Yes. Yes I will. At least two of these.

(It should be noted that tomato juice, spiced or otherwise, is a completely normal occurrence in Ukraine, even though opinions vary on whether people who enjoy it stray farther and farther from God with every sip) (I am those people. I enjoy tomato juice)

Okay so yesterday I saw someone mention that during the two months that I was away they started selling lime and chili flavoured yoghurt back in Ukraine. I repeat, LIME AND CHILI.

Obviously I had to task my boyfriend with acquiring it so that I can try it the moment I step off the train at the end of the month. Also, obviously, I googled it. Here's what I saw:

Okay, sure. Some choices have been made with the colours (I find the purple atrocious but I'm not good with colours so who knows). But wait, the "flamin' hot" banner reminds me of something. Haven't I seen it before?

Yep. I looked it up - Чудо and Doritos are both owned by PepsiCo, and PepsiCo straight up recycled the Flamin' Hot banner.

I really, really don't know what to make of this.

Also as I type this I realised that they also recycled the fucking horrible purple colour. This is torture.

At the end of the month I'm trying the Doritos-flavoured yoghurt, apparently. Watch this space for a review.

Thank you person in the tags for doing what I couldn't, my linguistic prowess only goes so far.

Tumblr seems fond of the Ukrainian "living is hard, dying would be a pity", so here's another part of Ukrainian vernacular that you guys might also like. This one is new and developed in 2022.

I would like to introduce it to you in the following context: it was August 2022, I returned to Ukraine for the first time since evacuating in March and was going through baby's first in a while air raid (in Odesa). I texted my best friend, who never left Kyiv, saying that I'm scared to go to sleep in case I wake up having died of a missile or whatever. She put on her very best Yoda face and bestowed upon me the following:

"1. Їбане так їбане." (Yibane tak yibane).

Now, this is extremely hard to explain, but I will try, to the best of my ability.

So, the basic meaning of it is: "If it strikes, it strikes". However, the verb for "strike" here is derived from the profane root word which basically means "to fuck". So a closer stylistic choice would be, "If it fucks you up, it fucks you up", or "If your ass gets struck, your ass gets struck". This is usually spoken before the person decides to ignore the air raid, set aside the feeling of impending doom and go to sleep.

That wasn't the end:

"2. І взагалі навряд чи їбане. (But in general it probably won't.)

3. Але якщо їбане - так їбане. (But if it strikes, then it strikes)."

That night I slept like a baby and didn't, in fact, wake up dead.

So if you are currently dealing with the impending doom around horrors you have no control over, take the wisdom of Ukrainians who have been grappling with horrors beyond comprehension for over three years now (some longer):

Їбане так їбане.

І взагалі навряд чи їбане.

Go to sleep.

nothing more flattering than someone saying "oh don't get her going" in reference to you when a topic you're passionate about is brought up

Oh also in case anyone was wondering, they said that if I'm that ungrateful then I deserve to go back and get bombed. Not really anything to do with the sentiment of the post, just a thing that actually happened.

I'll never forget how in 2023-ish there was a post on Instagram about the difficulties Ukrainian refugees face in the UK and I commented with my own experience to support the sentiment, and in response a helpful™ person from the US told me to just move to the US, what did I expect when refugee-ing to the UK, the US would've been much better. And I might have been at least nice about my response had they not been extremely condescending, but they infuriated me so much that I said, "I would feel safer in Ukraine now than in the US any day".

Anyway this has been aging rapidly since I said it first and it horrifies me how true this rings today.

Move to Ukraine, at least we have affordable healthcare!

Okay so this post breached containment I think so I feel the need to clarify, because the vibes in the notes seem to suggest that people see this as an inspirational quote bestowed onto someone to help them soldier on. That's not how Ukrainians do it. Rather, imagine a person that looks like they haven't slept in three days and also hiked up a mountain. They are asked "Hey how you doing buddy", and in response they let out the deepest, most done with this shit sigh you can imagine, mutter their favourite curse word and THEN they say the phrase (which, by the way, is four words in Ukrainian - тяжко жити, шкода вмерти/tyazhko zhyty, shkoda vmerty). It's said as if they're trying to convince themselves that dying would, indeed, he a pity. The other person looks at them, their eyes full of understanding, sighs also and then says "well at least we're not russians".

And THAT is what helps a Ukrainian soldier on.

One of the biggest issues of moving to England as a person who is Ukrainian AND neurodivergent is not knowing how to answer the small talk question of "how are you", but today I was reminded that Ukrainian blessed me with the phrase that roughly translates as "living is hard but dying would be a pity" and can we please naturalise it so I can use it all day every day

I debated posting this on here because this sounds SO MUCH like a Tumblr fake story from 2012 that I don't think anyone will believe me but I promise you, before we get into this, that it did happen and not a single person clapped.

One of my origin stories as the person I currently am is going to appeal my results for a English language competition in like 10th grade (of Ukrainian school, so ~15 yo) because most of the marks I was deducted was because of my handwriting (hi undiagnosed dysgraphia) and them being unable to decipher what I wrote. So I come, the examiner and I sit at a desk and go through all my "mistakes", and she goes:

"See? You said "we don't know of it". It should be "about"."

And I swear to you, I went:

"Actually, Shakespeare used "of" in "Hamlet". "And makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of"."

And then I pulled up the poetry foundation with To Be or Not To Be, showed it to her and she gave me the fucking point, too stunned to speak.

I had learned TBONTB by heart by reading it out loud to myself in the dark in my room at night multiple times in a row because I have always been sane and was never autistic actually.

It's such a loss that I wasn't on Tumblr as a teenager. I was grown in a lab to have a Tumblr blog that I will regret when I'm older.

I am going to [remembers that jokes about suicide are detrimental to myself and others] Scarborough Fair.

I mentioned tomato juice in my last post, so here's a tomato juice story for your amusement.

Scene: London, UK.

Time: late 2024.

Dramatis personae:

Me, a Ukrainian, craving tomato juice like it's the only thing that can save my life.

My beloved flatmate, also a Ukrainian, going through a chronic illness flare that causes horrible brain fog.

Flatmate: I'm going to the Polish shop. Do you want anything?

Me: I do have a request, but I feel like you'll refuse to have THAT in our fridge.

Flatmate: ???

Me: Tomato juice. I'm craving tomato juice. I want tomato juice SO BAD.

Flatmate: ...only because I love you.

An hour later, my beloved flatmate enters the kitchen with a bag full of Polish groceries. I salivate at the thought of my tomato juice and run up to them.

Flatmate: Okay so I was picking between spicy and not spicy, and decided that you would want it not spicy. Here.

They proceed to hand me the following:

Me: I mean, I'll give you that, it's not spicy.

Flatmate considers terminating the lease on the spot.

Exeunt.