A character originally conceived, but never realized for Imperium Offtopicum: The Aftermath, the sequel to my own Imperium Offtopicum IV, the confoundingly-numbered third title in the "official" IOT line. Yulia belongs to a fledgling mutant society dubbed the "Kaetif", the accidental byproduct of gene splicing experiments by IOT IV's Neo Incan Empire that were blown into the atmosphere during the nuclear holocaust at the first game's close. The New Hetmanate was one of the few countries that went beyond tolerance to actively integrate the Kaetif into the body politic, with Yulia the graduate of a dedicated military regiment established by Hetman Defakchenko's son and successor.

Yulia was created as a contingency plan in the late game after Taniciusfox revealed in private correspondence his secret craving for a nuclear exchange with the Federation of Petrograd, which had thwarted his Kaetif-supremacist Marian Republic at nearly every turn—were the Defakchenkos killed in a strategic bombing, she would be elected the first female and first Kaetif hetman in a meta-play goading Tanicius' de facto antagonist Sombra de Mar. Ironically, Tanicius' old foe Joecoolyo instead swung in with Japan's Last Will and Testament, which was to nuke the Marian capital in the heart of "Blue Zone" Africa; Tanicius used his last missile to hit Petrograd but failed to provoke the intended strategic retaliation, and the nation imploded amid a joint invasion by its African neighbours.

Sombra fled into the irradiated wastes of South America, where he planned revenge against the world as the prospective leader of the "Abhorrents", a blanket term for monstrous mutants that functioned as a generic barbarian faction in the game. While the game entered "indefinite" hiatus shortly afterward, I had sketched out a scenario based on Tanicius' aspirations to play Endgame Crisis Boss in which Yulia duels Sombra in a symbolic showdown for the fate of humanity and the planet. Even after I'd given up resuscitation of The Aftermath, I still had plans to draw the stand-off, which in recent years has taken on additional meaning with regard to the war on Ukraine.

Yulia reappeared in Terran Empress's Fallout IOT (though not the "Back in the USSR" reboot) as leader of the Standard-Bearers of the Revolution, essentially the Hetmanate reconfigured to the setting. In this case, the dyki lyudy ("Wild People") were a local phenomenon, the byproduct of Soviet attempts to replicate the Forced Evolutionary Virus; leveraged as an asset by postwar Ukraine, they are a diplomatic stumbling block to anti-"mutant" factions, and her succession of Generalissimo Mykhayl Tarasenko prompts a mutiny by Kazakh allies. The quashing of the revolt secures her legitimacy and brings the Kazakhs under unified authority with the Ukrainians.

• The term "Kaetif" is sporked from @Jakkal's Black Tapestries, a modification of the Middle English caitif originally a moniker for animals magically uplifted for slave labour; their subsequent rebellion is the foundation to a longstanding racial antipathy that forms the backdrop of the story. The comic is alluded to in the epilogue to IOT IV, and one sketch is directly based on a poster that was sold on Jakkal's now-defunct personal website.
• Yulia's costume is a Kuban uniform (not identified in the original reference). Her decorations include the Order of the Gold Star, Order of Merit, Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Order for Courage, and Medal for Military Service.
• Her surname was created for Fallout IOT; it derives from the given name Nastunye, meaning "of the Resurrection", chosen thematically to reflect her species' post-apocalyptic origin. The suffix -yshyn is a Ukrainian matronymic.
• Yulia was the origin of the Cossacks meme on IOT: despite Taniciusfox supposedly Watching me on DeviantArt, he only ever engaged with my content when he was pinged directly. In a test of whether he was an "active" watcher, after her portrait was posted to DeviantArt in 2013, I started making liberal references to Cossacks in what was then the IOT Chatango host and waiting to see if he made the connection (he never did). This reached its apex when, in a tacit protest of him launching IOT 13 right after NedimNapoleon aired IOT 12 ("The Happening"), I and a group of confederates joined the game as Cossack Hosts in regions as far-flung as al-Andalus, Mongolia, and West Africa.
• Yulia is one of three leaders for the Hetmanate in the IOT Civilization IV mod. Aggressive and Imperialistic, her AI personality is based on her context in Fallout IOT, militaristic and somewhat mercenary. Her peace theme is "Oh, Grow You Dry Oak"; her war theme is the shared instrumental "Zaporizhian March".
• Yulia is a potential reinforcement in DYORPG, specializing in battlefield support powers.