#rubin lore

sorry for the late reply i was looking at an acephalic roman marble copy of a bronze greek athena Yes it took 13 hours Now Yes i think he is. elaborating because i Love Lore + putting it in writing allows me to Rember so multiple reasons

i think it is a nice contrast with andrey who has enough lover to raise a small army (weapons included possibly). the hoeless and the hoeful.

while the peter we see in-game is Fucked Uppppp from the Farkhad Incident i think he was also kinda off his hinges before (#respectful, i'm off them myself) and kinda difficult to handle as a lover. or even as a person frankly. 2.5. you gotta have big strong hands to handle him and the people of the capital kinda too soft-grasped.

in correspondance with 1. & 2. i think peter is pickier about his lovers, or his entourage in general. i think he's been courted in art school but they were so plebian to him he did not fw them. he also needs to #build something #deep and #powerful with someone before lovermode gets activated (again in contrast to andrey, who's way more casual about these things) and he both Is Difficult To Like as a person and Has Difficulties Liking

while you asked for the kind of people in the Peter Already Dated instance, i will still say it because i think it fits the answer anyways: he gravitates towards People Who Strive For Greatness, For Greater-Than-Themselves: this is why in-game he expresses fondness (mixed of fear) for the Kain women (someone asked a while ago how i considered his praises of either maria or nina they asked: this is what his deal is), and in my mind's eye gravitated towards farkhad -> this resulted in The Incident, especially considering farkhad is also Literally Great As In Tall, Like Taller Than The Twins, and it did peter's mind upside down sideways and all ways.

but actually 4.5 -> this is literally what the peterstakh deal is. rubin is Literally Great As In Tall and peter's brain melted. all blood drained from it went somewhere else. he has the big hands to handle him. literally this

YESSSSS OMG #YASSSSSSSS I DO! I DO IN FACT! IT'S NEVER TOO NICHE FOR ME HONEY #THOUGHTSHAVER

since most of the population is right-handed, imagine that if i'm not mentioning anyone they're either right-handed OR i don't have any particular headcanons. + you get some handwriting headcanons as well, a "buy one get one free" deal

Dankovsky: right-handed, relatively neat writing when he wants, otherwise you're getting that Doctor's Handwriting

Burakh: naturally right-handed, but he trained himself to be able to write with his left hand when he sprained his wrist age 14. his left-handed writing is kinda fucked up and it's obvious that's not his natural dominant hand, but if you squint and focus it's readable

Clara: ambidextrous, but she has very rarely written in her life so she doesn't even notice.

Andrey: naturally ambidextrous, has a left-handedness dominance

Peter: naturally ambidextrous, has a right-handedness dominance

(fun fact about ^ i headcanon that they always had to be sat together at school and for a while the teacher didn't understand why they didn't get any work done and then realized that's because the way they had them (peter on the left and andrey on the right) their elbows keep bumping in each other's so they just switched them around and it was fine)

Rubin: naturally left-handed but trained himself to be able to write/do other stuff with his right hand in case (it was for him a thing of like Discipline)

Lara: right-handed, relatively clean handwriting unless she starts losing it and scribbling

Grief: left-handed

Eva: right-handed, neat handwriting, likes to either embellish her lettering a lot or have very "dry", austere, almost worryingly simple shapes

Yulia: right-handed, a nervoussss writer, very tense grip on the pen, very low and slanted letters

Nina and Victoria: both ambidextrous

Katerina: naturally ambidextrous, her proficiency in both hands has been coming and going, and her morphine addiction has made her lose her grip and stability on her writing to the point it looks like chicken-scratch now

Capella: naturally ambidextrous, she uses mostly her right hand so far but will learn to use the left one more as well as she grows up + trains with stuff like sewing, embroidering, playing instruments,...

Khan: right-handed, relatively clean handwriting. it gets cleaner and more precise as he grows up because he goes on to go to college and learn languages, so he takes pride and effort into materializing the letters of languages other than his own like greek, arabic, any using the latin alphabet, etc.

Notkin: left-handed. he's barely literate because of his Shit Life Syndrome making his writing, when he tries, somewhat unintelligible. since he barely ever writes he has no muscle memory of how to hold his pen so his left hand doesn't smear the ink all over.

Catnip: right handed, clean and pretty handwriting, her grammar is kinda shit but she has an excuse. she's an orphan.

Dandy: left-handed, messyyyy handwriting, but his grasp on grammar's preddy good. paired with his sister ^ they make for Notkin's Redaction and Deciphering Team.

this is such a beautiful ask i love the world it conjures (which is mine) okay let's do this.

ok in my mind's eye rubin pre-The Baldening had long hair like pretty long hair. longer than current-events peter but shorter than pre-events peter [who had it to the waist or something]. so the transformation of long haired -> bald was immediate, drastic and jarring. in p2 burakh says "I'll be damned… you shaved your head. Preparing to become a monk? Or a soldier?" & since in p2 the Rubin War Lore doesn't stand (however i make it stand) the Monk thing is like. as possible as the soldiering. (in canonverse i don't think he meaningfully contemplated monkness[?] because he is not like pious in that way, however he'd have considered hermiticism/secular anchoritism). so he went from long-haired to Bald for multiple reasons, including asceticism, sharp separation with his old life (some cultures have hair-cutting as a traditions of grief), and also because a ponytail in the army is not that useful or safe (but most of the reasons are internal/psychological in nature).

as the Events unfold however... i think he considers growing his hair back he does. however, he needed decades to grow his hair as long as it got to be, so he hesitates, because the awkward stage of bald -> meaningfully long is like. pretty damn long. he's not sure he wants to deal with the short scruff of growing back out a buzzcut. he might just stay #Bald forever. sorry.

in the concept of of the peterstakh [you are on the peterstakh blog.] i think on one hand peter Would Love to see him with his long hair... but it'd take a while... so in the meantime he creates dreams out of pictures he's shown of rubin age 20 with his long hair. he creates dreams and he braids their hair together. in dreams. also purely as a "opposite attracts" thing: the concept of Bald x Luscious very entertaining to me. also i think peter loves his #Baldness because he gets to do shit like this:

meeting of seeping inks

boy do i. throwing in other stuff that's not necessarily a mental health condition or neurodivergency but that i think affects them like brain-wise + for me to rember lol.

In general basically Most people in this town from an atmosphere of social misery have a little Something Something. most are grieving and some are Poorly Coping with a shit past, whether it is because of abandonment, loss, grief, so on and so forth. the plague adds More Grief and hands out PTSD like corn to the hens. some who have like. Syndromes that could be brought to a psychiatrist i can think of

Burakh: PTSD (war medic lore + The Plague Bro) + might lend him some Prolonged Grief Disorder if i feel like it

Dankovsky: i don't think how he is pre-Events comes from pathologies i think he's just a closeted gay male in academia, that plays a number with your mind (the self-aggrandizing and prideful behavior of being a know-it-all man in academia + the fear, restlessness and paranoia that comes with having to keep your homosexuality secret -> combo of evil). develops PTSD thorough the game, mostly becomes Twitchy, reckless behaviors, intrusive thoughts, and then it settles in post-events like nightmares flashbacks the usual

Rubin: PTSD (soldier/mercenary p1 lore) like shell-shock PTSD which in my mind's eye translates into obsessions/intrusive thoughts. he also has a lil Something Something from having had Not The Best parental figure and having to fight for recognition until he burned himself but i'm not sure what Diagnosis that is. it's just Shit's Fucked Diagnosis. self-esteem in the dumps.

Petr: i go back and forth between bipolar, bipolar schizophrenic, schizoaffective, like i haven't settled on something yet, but bipolar (or bipolar-like, like the "mood disorder" of schizoaffective) is a given (mixed episode in P1 and depressive episode in P2 if you care). obviously addiction. i go back and forth if i see the hallucinations/delusions he has as something from the bipolar disorder, from the addiction, from something else entirely... very hefty and powerful game so all if fair. + The Guilt. (might become paranoid from that)

Andrey: i don't know if i want him to Just Be Like This or for whatever his problem is to be pathological. someone infused in me an ADHD diagnosis for him and while i go back and forth he strikes me as the kind of guy who behaves better on Ritalin. but is it because of a neurodivergency or because he just loves drugs. much to think about. + The Guilt (might become paranoid from that too but ykno. "motor activity eliminates mental activity"...)

Anna: Girl's Scared Disorder. i'd say paranoia but is it paranoia if they're really after you... ykwim. Obdurate/insular paranoid, but is it truly pathological if walls having eyes is like not out of the reach of possibilities... etc

Katerina: canon addiction and what that brings. i think hers pushes her mostly to depressive episodes instead of aggressive/exteriorizing ones.

all of the orphans, by virtue of being orphans, have some kind of Issue, because not being socialized properly/cared for/living in social and psychological neglect like Does A Number on your brain regardless. most of them kids got that SLS (Shit Life Syndrome)

Mishka: her canon autism + methinks an attachment disorder because it fits with the timeline of her losing her parents around 3 of age. Prolonged Grief Disorder too perhaps? much to think about

Notkin: Tourette's, mostly motor tics. + a dys, i was shared the hc of dyslexia and i think i'll espouse it. i also think his family life was kinda shit + living in the streets is Actively Dangerous so like. (C)PTSD? i think it's The Least Of His Problems but it mostly makes him twitchy, doesn't dare get much sleep, needs to never have anyone or anything behind his back, stuff like that

Grace: some kind of FASD (fetal alcohol syndrome disorder) since her mother canonically drank while pregnant with her, i think hers mostly manifests as memory problems and learning/speech disabilities (also doesn't help that. orphan), poor reasoning and judgment skills & vision problems. all of those are also wrapped in the package of like. not having been properly socialized as a child

i draw rubin (p1 or otherwise) with two scars one on the forehead (like on th left side. you know what i'm talking about i think that's what you're talkin about) and a scar at the back of the neck that i made up for fun

the scar at the back of the neck is the grazing bullet (like GRAZING, just cut through the topmost layer of skin, it felt like a caress when it went by and then this neck and throat felt like they had caught fire)

the scar on the forehead in my mind's eye is the blade of a bayonet (as attached to a rifle). i don't think rubin was like more gifter than any other chump in the army, hence why they sent his ass into the infantry, which is basically like. the cannon fodder corps. he went toe-to-toe with an enemy but because he's significantly taller and heavier he managed to break him down, but the bayonet nicked him across the forehead. i think the wound was way bigger than how the scar looks now, and it bled profusely because that's the face for you. blood blinded him in his left eye for a minute, the longest minute of his fucking life.

now, wrt the neck scar, touch makes him twitch. and not in a fun way. he winces, he pulls away. you know