#; sofia

Hi again, everyone! Bree here with my second baby, this time the outspoken First Daughter of Ukraine. I’m almost done with her bio which will be on her bio page when finished, but until then here’s some important info!

Sofia is the oldest child of President Oleksander Valentina of Ukraine and his late wife Anastasia. For most of her life she was an only child. Her nickname is Sofi, and she lets most people use it.

She is fluent in Ukrainian, Russian, English, and Latin (as a result of her education). She’s also competent in French and German, though she finds both a bit exhausting to speak.

Sofia is well-respected and beloved in her home country for her constant use of her status as a voice for political and societal change. She champions civil rights of all kinds across the globe (particularly women’s rights and LGBT rights), and started a foundation whose purpose is to combat poverty and hunger worldwide. Her activism has made her a fairly popular figure around the world, but very little is known about her as she keeps her personal life very private.

The only aspect of her personal life that she openly shares is her art. She’s a skilled painter and sculptor, and has used her art to further her activism and messages many times over the years.

However, Sofia is as divisive a figure as she is a popular one, because of the burning passion she throws into her activism and her abrasively egalitarian views. Among the government of Ukraine, she is seen as a nuisance and formidable enemy to those who stand in the way of progress and change. Many attempts have been made over the years to use laws surrounding the First Family to force her to mellow out or back down, so far with no success. She’s dodged all of these quite artfully.

Romantically, Sofia is quite reserved. She’s allowed herself to have one or two relationships that were primarily for political reasons, but always broke them off when they’d served their purpose. This has given her a little bit of an conniving, “ice queen” reputation, but she doesn’t particularly care. Romance, in her mind, should never be mixed with politics. She knows this first hand.

Her parents were once a political powerhouse. Her mom was her dad’s campaign manager before he became President, and this drove a wedge between them. They kept up the appearance of a happy marriage for the public and for Sofia when she was young, but it was pretty clear to people close to the family that their marriage had some serious problems. When Sofia was 8, her father had an affair with a Russian woman—not unexpected, as both Oleksander and Anastasia had started cheating on each other quite regularly by that point. When the woman vanished, Oleksander suspected that she might have been carrying his child, and whatever resources he wasn’t spending on running a country were spent on finding her. This further destroyed his marriage as Anastasia felt abandoned.

Sofia grew up knowing there was something wrong, that the carefully cultivated image her family presented was a lie. As a budding artist, she took her frustrations out by sneaking out into the streets of Kiev to paint political murals on important landmarks. This guerrilla art earned her the nickname “Buntivnyk”, the Rebel, though to this day no one knows that she was the artist except her. She also began producing slightly less combative art for the public, using it to raise awareness for various causes and charities. Eventually, she went to college for Foreign Affairs and Art degrees.

As she was about to graduate, she finally learned the truth behind her family’s disintegration. Oleksander and Anastasia had not been in love for decades, and furthermore he might have a lovechild somewhere out in the world whose mother he desperately wanted to reconnect with. If/when he found this child and their mother, he intended to divorce Anastasia, regardless of her recent COPD diagnosis. Anastasia was apparently on board with this; she felt she no longer had reason to live with a husband she hated, and was content to sleep around the capital until the disease finally killed her. Disgusted by both her parents, Sofia finished college and moved to Odessa to start her foundation. She only returned to Kiev for her mother’s funeral, but otherwise was determined to stay away for as long as possible.

A few years ago, her father begged her to come home, promising that he’d given up on his one-time mistress and possible secret child. He wanted his family back, what little of it he hadn’t destroyed, and he wanted to be part of her life. Little by little, Sofia reconnected with him, and things were actually going well until six months ago. That’s when special forces brought Tatiana Metanova to the presidential estate, and paternity tests proved that she was Oleksander’s illegitimate child. Knowing her father lied to her again, she has cut ties with him once more and happily moved to Oslo to get away from him. She’s not happy that Tatiana is here, too, but she’s just trying to avoid her newly-discovered half-sister as much as possible.

In some ways Sofia was sheltered the way many royal children and children of politicians are, and in some ways she had a good deal more freedom. While she’s never done some simple things like play cards or learn to drive a car, she did engage in a certain degree of youthful partying, is known for her other hobby of video gaming, and engaged in illegal street art as a teen. It’s a mixed bag.

Despite her tough stance on issues she cares about, Sofia definitely has a very soft side. She can react badly when overwhelmed, lashing out at people until she is given space to calm down, getting very restless and trying to do something about whatever is upsetting her. When scared, she will retreat physically and emotionally until she feels safe again. And she is a very physical person in terms of showing affection. She gives hugs freely, touches people casually, happily cuddles people she is close to, etc.

Sofi is determined to make the most of her time here in Oslo. She still runs her foundation and intends to use it to help common people caught in the middle of this war. She’s uncompromising in her ethics and formidable to deal with as an opponent, but she hopes that this situation will yield some compromise and peace. If she can help make that happen, she’ll do whatever she can.