I actually had to memorize all the states for my American life and institutions class so I’d do better than most but still probably mess up most of my answers. Still, you’re not exactly one to have to be apologetic about it since you’re still one of the more culturally aware Americans I’ve encountered, and that’s very appreciated. Now I’ve reached the Tchita Uplands and the trek to Archades is much smoother and easier than I remember. I almost feel like I’m overleveled. In FFXII. How.
See, just going to show how bad we're at with any country in that side of the continent. Not that I would imagine most Europeans would have an easy time with finding our states, especially when you get to my part of it and everything starts to look the same.
She’s my Uhlan too but I do agree that there is tons of fun time magic. I’m just having real trouble determining what conditions should set them off Czechia and Slovakia don’t count as Baltic’s because they don’t even have access to the Baltic seas, or any sea for that matter. I have seen actually lumping Poland together with Baltic countries (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia), even though like you said, we share nothing with them. In fact, only Lithuania and Latvia are linked by a linguistic heritage - Estonian is an Ugro-Finnic language which, interestingly enough, is not part of the indoeauropean super family of languages that is shared by most European languages, as well as Hindi and other neighboring language, with the link between all us being a shared proto-indoeuropean language and Sanskrit. Yeah, our cultural identity has always been a big topic for us with the bulk of literature in the romance period and onwards being centered on that. I personally really like that cultural trait and I am pretty proud to have this sort of bullheadedness about my autonomy culturally ingrained into my psyche, though I can see a lot of people taking it too far with stuff as harmless as wearing red and white eagle shirts on a daily basis, to very worrying trends like the increase in nationalism and elements of that nationalism bleeding into our political doscourse. Like many things, it’s a double edged sword. But nevertheless, I do consider myself a patriot, and as much as an inferiority complex I may have because of it, I still believe I’m pretty lucky to have been born here.
I actually experimented with Time Magic, you would be surprised how useful Gravity spells and Balance can be. Course Ashe doubled as my Bushi character so she eventually went melee focus towards the end.
Actually, Poland isn't counted as part of the Baltic States, nor Slovakia and Czech Republic surprisingly enough, though I don't think those countries have appeared yet either. Only Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are counted in the joke, though I do know that Poland is not afraid of Russia and they show Poland bossing around these countries as well, until Sweden shows up. Poland gets most of his scenes when either discussing WWI, dealing with the Scandinavian countries, or dealing with Prussia. Honestly, Poland is generally remembered more clearly than the other Baltic States in the U.S, but that's likely due to your country always being one of the first hotbeds in both World Wars, and then some stuff from the Cold War. I mean, at least your country kept it's identity during the U.S.S.R. era whereas the other countries were kind of forgotten and are simply considered "fragments of the former U.S.S.R." despite many of them simply trying to go back to their sovereignty before the Imperialist Era of Europe.
Btw, I am having a hard time coming up wit a decent gambit setup for my Time Battlemage
I have a passing knowledge of Hettalia, so I might look into it one day. But that does sum up how we’re all viewed by the world, doesn’t it
You should watch Axis Powers Hetalia, as one of the biggest jokes with the Baltic States, besides their mutual fear of Russia, is that despite always being lumped together, they actually have nothing in common culturally or by language except for being bullied by Russia despite everyone, including themselves never being able to tell them apart from each other. It's a running joke when the three actually have time to have a conversation. Poland is pretty amusing character as well, despite being a bit bratty. His hilarious conversation with Britain and France before WWI started is definetly a good scene to establish his character.
That sounds very similar to the word we use for small dumplings in Polish (pierożki), which is actually a diminutive form of pierogi (which, incidentally, is actually a plural form; one “pierogi” in Polish is actually called “pieróg”). But even though we have those similarities, Polish and Russian are actually very different languages that are mutually completely unintelligible (though with some hand gestures and similar words, you can communicate more easily that with speakers of completely unrelated languages). People are usually surprised when I tell them that, as we’re all pretty much conflated info one big Slavic mass from a more Western perspective. Which is to be expected, I guess. An interesting thing to note is the word for thank you, as it’s one of those things that separate West Slavic languages (Polish, Czech, Slovak) from East Slavic ones (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarus). The Eastern word is some variant of spasiba, while we Western Slavs use the Germanic riot found in German and English - our “dziękuje” sounds very similar to “danke” and, by extension, “thank you”. That all said, I don’t think I’ve ever tried actual Russian piroshki! Then again, over here we don’t exactly do Russian cuisine. It’s very rare to the point that I never encountered the restaurant like that. We get all the standard exported cuisines, plus Czech and Lithuanian stuff at the appropriate borders, but things from a bit farther to the East are not common in the slightest.
I think it would depend on the language it uses. I just had a hell of time tonight looking up a piroshki, because the way it was being pronounced made it sound like boloski to me instead. I need to try me some Russian treats it seems.
