Enis - step father step son dynamic it was a lot of straining and getting closer throughout history. Ilija hated him when he was younger for "ruining" his family, truth is as he grew up he realized and accepted the fact it was out of his own choices and stopped feeling spite because of it but will he ever admit to it? No he will not. There were times where the two were on the same side of history and could rely on each other properly, but also times where they couldn't look at each other in the eyes. Enis still struggles to because when he looks at him all he can see is the reflection of the man his wife loved more than she'll ever love him, and this little serb in his household is a constant reminder of that especially as he went into adulthood. Nowadays their relationship is odd, they can't agree on anything (either because of their own pride or because Ilija is a contrarian) but they have their little moments of finding peace in disagreement over morning coffee and a rolled cigarette. Ilija calls him Babo, it's always just a cheap joke to him but some more pathetic depth of Enis' heart hopes it's not, and that he genuinely means it.

Idriza - dear mother who he never strained away from, they had the typical squabbles that you'd expect from a teenage boy and a woman going through menopause but nothing that ever destroyed their relationship forever. A lot of agreeing and disagreeing, many of the agreements being when he feared her authority especially. She loves that boy though, and he is an extension of herself no matter how much of a pain the ass he is.

Šćepan - the patriarch, he looks in his image a lot. Ilija used to be his whole world when he was little, but part of loving someone is being able to let go of them. He beat his own possessiveness with the paternal instinct to just make sure he's safe which is why Ilija ended up chilling up north with the Austrians for most of the time of the ottoman period. However one thing broke them apart and that was WWI, Montenegro was quick to fall under the attacks and couldn't keep his son safe when he most needed. He feels shame about it to this day even though less pronounced than it was before, especially as Ilija forgave him eventually, but he'll forever remember being left alone at the mercy of the Austrian aggressors who were killing his people left and right. I like to this their reconciliation happened during WWII, where after Ilija managed to escape the north his first instinct was to go find his father, and after decades of not being on speaking terms he broke down in his arms once he found him, and Šćepan cradled him the same way he did so many centuries ago. They're not that close anymore, still Ilija finds him ruffling his hair whenever he gets the chance, and perhaps he still catches a soft proud smile from him followed by a quiet sigh amidst all of his passive aggression.

Vuk - they can't stand each other, fuck outta my face with your "but the Bosnian Serb government" you don't know shit about our relations. Vuk calls him Seljak Ilija calls him Seljačina, Vuk calls him cancer to the Serbian nation and Ilija calls him a second Serbian fascist. Ottoman period Ilija was a soldier for Krajina and Vuk was one for the Ottoman empires, they probably shot at each other a few times, Vuk claims Yugoslavia was his plan and idea as Ilija took it in his own hands to help the croats liberate themselves from the Austrians, Vuk hung Ilija even with his slit throat for opposing his plans of a greater Serbia, Vuk turned his back on him in the 90s, and nowadays they steel sneer heating each other's voices and accents. A lot of trying to prove to the other who is actually the biggest Serb, who actually brought the Serbian nation to what it is today. Still at the end of the day they're bound by the Kosovo Myth, and no amount of intrahatred will ever change that.

Dražen - utter hatred in the modern day but there was once a time..... Not that Dražen ever liked him but Ilija idolized him when he was little, being just a bit older than him and them living together under Austria made him see Dražen in a much positive light. Though very one-sided on Ilija's part it was no secret that there was a lot of love for him and it was the first time he ever felt butterflies in his stomach looking at another man. Well it all came as the worst life lesson in his life where the man he put on such a high pedestal betrayed him in front of his very eyes, symbolically gutting open the lump in his throat he'd feel when around him. Now Ilija just relies on him for summer work and spits on the ground he walks on, Dražen doesn't get why he's still so angry because he thinks it's been too long since what happened to still hold a grudge, meanwhile much to Ilija's dismay his view on love was permanently damaged and will never be fixed again.

Bajram or whatever you want to call Kosovo I DONT GIVE A SHIT - less than enemies more so rivals with deep rooted sexual tension, one thinks the other is a walking breathing tumour and yet the motto still is that when they take over the country Slavija will be the first to fall. When they can set the obvious nationality gap aside they do get along and mirror each other to a surprising amount, Kosovo's nature both provokes him and intrigues him, same thing on the Albanian's side. They have no history together, Ilija had to yell at him a few times about not grouping Serbs together no matter the amount of remarks that leave his mouth about Kosovo's ethnicity. Just let them hit their bong in a bakery's storage room in peace. They'd have a little club for all the separatist movements who are banned from the general meetings, and it's a lot of fighting wether Kosovo or Srpska is the team leader.

Vojvodina - he is madly in love with her but is unable to form it into a sentence because he cannot be vulnerable around anyone ever again. She cares about him but he pushes her away because he'd rather believe nobody is worthy of his affection than to be unraveled the way he was. The FINAL BOSS of anxious X avoidant, she's the one that saved him first during WWII and was all he had to rely on, nowadays she still sees the shadow of the boy he was before everything fell apart, Ilija to counter it thinks he's a grown ass man. Due to his actions and the way he speaks about her many assume that either he's clueless and retarded, hates women or is just too much of a pussy to own up to anything and this makes her go insane to a point it's common for Vuk to get home and see her crying over the worst man she could possibly feel anything for. Maybe they are allowed to be intimate one sweet summer night a year and it ruins both their mental states until the next

Janez - thinks he's a faggot and Janez thinks he smells bad (both correct)

Design wise I made Ilija’s hair shorter and shaved at the sides. Shorter because I imagine longer hair didn’t sit quite right in the army and shaved at the sides to look more like Vuk, and also to look less like Dražen (which I might expand on another day). Ilinka’s hair is quite short, but it mostly mimics Idriza’s style minus the braid. Both have it cut uneven cause they don’t have hairstylists they just use unsharpened blades out of the shed

(Also I gave them the eyebrows Tix gave Srpska in his last appearance, which are quite similar to Enis’)

The clothing is kind of all over the place, initially the idea was that Nyo Srpska would represent the regions up north while Srpska was going to be leaning towards Sarajevo and Eastern Herzegovina, but I realized if that was the case I’d be just giving him Montenegrin folk clothing, so I scrapped the idea and made both into jarbled messes of the biggest chunk of Serbian ethnic territory

Although the drawing does say Republika Srpska, it kind of covers all Western Serbian ethnic land aside from Montenegro. So Regions of Krajina in Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnian Krajina, Bosnia in General and (Eastern) Herzegovina.

I think I still ended up leaning more towards the north west, especially with Ilija, since his clothes are quite similar to the ones of the Kninska Krajina region up in North Dalmatia, Ilinka seems to be more central Bosnian? Tough the fact Ilija has only one sleeve of his jacket on is more so characteristic to Bosnia than to Kninska Krajina, where they mostly just let it rest on their shoulders. But through most of the land, Black is a dominating colour in male folk clothing, though it goes along with Red and Blue in some regions… especially in Eastern Herzegovina cause of it’s deep connection with Montenegro’s culture, which also bled into some parts of Bosnia.

Though my main goal was mostly to add many of the coin like accessories, because of the Nemo (Deaf) Kolo from Glamoč, which is characterized by it’s silence with an exception being the footsteps of the players and also the iconic rustling of the decorations on them. The reason for the silence is because during the Ottoman period the serbs of Bosnia weren’t allowed to play traditional music, which made them have to play the kolo with little singing and only instructions to be spoken. All this makes the Deaf Kolo look quite grim and almost disturbing to watch, a far cry from the Kolo of their brothers over the Drina which is characterized by Joy and Celebration. Even the Kolo from Kninska Krajina is without music, though it has plenty of singing.