Why Yes I Did Indeed Draw Them For Valentines Day Don't You Worry! Anyway They're Supposed To Be Wearing

have you talked about why her last name is chernenko? id love to hear about it!

[upd: it turned out that Himaruya never listed a name for her in the original post, just in the wiki; so this post is kinda irrelevant]

That’s a good question, I’ve got no idea tbh🎉

I know Himaruya listed this as a surname he liked for Ukraine; and etymologically, surnames ending in –enko are typical for the country (I’ve got one lol)

One theory states that this surname specifically comes from the old-Ukrainian word for "black", "черний/chernyi", which evolved into modern-Ukrainian "чорний/chornyi". That’s why I am contemplating between Chernenko and Chornenko for her

It also might be a reference to one of the ex-soviet leaders who had the surname Chernenko and I REALLY HOPE it isn’t he wasn’t even Ukrainian ew wtf (😭😭)

god forbid men have political alliances with complicated long-term implications.

If only I had a nickel every time I came across Brandenburg described as a sandbox…

…which is due much of the land being flat and covered with marsh and sand back at the time. So makes sense.

As you may or may not have noticed drawing silly chibis brings me joy lately. Also yes I have no clue what colour his eyes should be. Sometimes I feel like dark brown, sometimes like blueish-grey and sometimes it is the colour of sand. Yes. I will decide one day. Maybe.

🫂🫂🫂

I see you worried over making "vent art" but please don't stop. You NEED a place to escape from the hard reality, right? You need to make your voice heard like everyone, so stay confident with yourself and keep drawing Ukraine. We all love your personif country here.. 💛💙 Accept this as a kiss and a hug from me!

www. Thank you, but im not Ukrainain - im Latvian.

But Ukraine and all Ukranians deserve all the Hugs and Kisses yes 💙💛 and a country free from war and bitch ass neighbours!!! 🔥

The vent part of the art was more me being mad and tired about hearing our neighbour and friend get dogpiled and slaugtered by the guy who's saying that everyone else who dares to have a border with him is next. And watching live as one of our biggest allies turns their back on Ukraine and the rest of us.

Which in no way compares to actually being dogpiled and slaughtered by said guy.

But by God is opening the news and seeing 'Trump blames Ukraine for starting the war' or 'Ukraine kept out of talks about Ukraine' or 'The new Molotov - Ribentrop pact?' disheartening and infuriating.

But yea. Thats why i drew Ukraine together with the Baltics and Poland. I got tired and mad abt it all (an emotion shared by many) and drew the squad tired and mad together.

🤝 Were all holding hands on this 'fuck Russia, support Ukraine' train 🤝

what is the relationship between 1p and 2p ukr like?

to say at least, complicated…

…so this is still prety much a sketch, a WIP, I’m still working on their relationship and characterisation and things might change later! but as for now, here’s a vision

separate chibis, I’ll throw them at you and run

Polak screenshot redraw, but ridiculously exaggerated bc I need to practise drawing emotions😔🔨

just realised the nickname I’ve used for my blog (edelweissjpg, edelweissko, whatever i don‘t remember) for the last couple of months could be seen as a reference to a ship I HAD NO IDEA PEOPLE CALL SWISSAUS OR AUSSWISS, EDELWEISS, SKJSKSJ I DON’T even ship it (maybe?? idk??) I just like the lil mountain flower; it’s just funny. lowkey wanna draw them now

Thinking of who I ship Austria with; Hungary, but it’s a super disfunctional marriage; Prussia, but short-term (think Deutsches Bund) that escalated quickly and failed miserably, after which Austria ended up with Hungary partly out of spite. And as for Prussia and Hungary, well he’s too gay and 1. At first it was the entire celibacy in the teutonic order thing 2. When that technically ended, he was hella confused about what he feels about her, or rather what he thought he was supposed to feel, but really, was it that he wanted Hungary or to piss off Austria? Yeah. 3. Ended up as a bromance. Seriously. This love triangle shit goes crazy

I gotta read more about swissaus possibilities just because I’m intrigued

ah. who’d have thought 💀💀

also kanye east wtf. I’m sorry should have not tagged Estonia perhaps. should I perhaps delete it then. Sorry Estonians

the situation in question 😒

«life is like spaghetti it’s hard till you make it»

Mail Online

Italians call for Estonia Eurovision song ban due to offensive lyrics

Rapper Tommy Cash, who is representing Estonia in this year's international song competition in May, has been picked to perform 'Espresso Ma

GUYS. THIS. IT MAY LOOK LONG, BUT PLEASE. READ. THIS.

hi, so im kind of wondering what is your thoughts with hetalia especially the fact that it hasnt age well and specifically what do you think of the way hetalia Ukraine's character is handled

oh that's a great question, thank you! oh i sure have a lot of things to say but it'll be difficult to make it concise and readable

early hetalia certainly has aged like milk, the idea of making axis powers the main characters Did Not Spark Joy. it seems that himaruya made an effort to distance hetalia from that since then, there was this whole rebranding from "axis powers hetalia" to "hetalia world stars" and the comics no longer touch on ww2 but rather modern day, sometimes history, some fun facts, and sometimes have no basis whatsoever. it's hard to judge the intentions behind that. sure it has ironed some of the problems but general inaccuracy and disrespectful portrayal of countries remains an issue. and personally i just find himaruya's writing bad and unfunny.

and now for ukraine. oh dear.

to start off easy, a short note on her appearance - as a ukrainian, it's a bit weird to see her blonde and blue eyed? the beauty standard here for centuries has been "black hair brown eyes" and it's seen in folk songs, poems and novels. and yet it's not just hetalia that does that. it's not a mistake really, i'm just weirded out, especially after how western far-right and far-left has been explaining support for ukraine as "because ukrainians are blonde and blue-eyed".

but onto her most prominent visual trait, let's talk about boobs. in hetalia collezione from 2021 (i think?), on ukraine's character profile himaruya has written that he was inspired by naked female protesters upon creating her.

the "naked protesters" are femen, a radical feminist activist group famous for topless protests. it's a group of like, 15 people. they were last prominent in 2013. i think most ukrainians barely even remember them. it's fucking wild to me that he based an entire country personification off of that. it is, however, quite telling of him that himaruya saw feminist protesters and only saw potential for cheap jokes about boobs.

i chose a good screenshot, it shows some other problems as well - "crybaby", "poor" and "she loves russia chan". i'll save the latter for last. let's focus on her being a crybaby and poor. "but actually very strong!", himaruya says, except i can't recall any examples in canon where ukraine has been shown as strong. instead her whole personality and appearance reeks of 2000s perception of eastern europe, influenced by both western and russian chauvinism to show them as inferior. ukrainian women have been stereotyped like hetalia ukraine - poor, huge tits, weak in a "traditionally feminine" way, whores. it was disgusting back then, it's even more disgusting that in 20 years himaruya didn't bother to revisit that at all.

politically speaking, these jokes, about ukraine being poor and weak and dependent on russia, while have some basis in the reality of 1990-2000s ukraine, are very insensitive to the causes of these issues and just feel like punching down.

and now, "she's loves russia chan". lol. lmao even. in 2021 no less. it has been another consistent trait of hers, as shown on the screenshot above that she just wants to get along with her "siblings" russia and belarus. to talk to russia "like i used to". there's this sense that they somehow grew distant, and all of them regret it, but it's never shown what happened.

what it really reminds me of is the russian narrative "big bad evil politicians (and/or big bad evil west) want to divide our brotherly nations, the people just want to live in peace but have no say in it" and shit like that. it's not the case. what happened is the russian state trying to tie ukraine in its sphere of influence, using economic blackmail to influence its political decisions, and then punishing ukraine with occupation of crimea and parts of donetsk and luhansk regions for choosing eu over russia. even before that, but especially after 2014, the amount of chauvinism russian media and russian people has shown has been enormous. i grew up in an environment dominated by russian media showing how ukrainians were nothing more but dumber, poorer rural russians. since 2014 they also started calling us nazis, child eaters, ukrainian identity - fake and made up by austro-hungarian empire, ukrainian lands - gifts of lenin, and so on. i will stress again - not just russian media. but russian people. even the supposed "liberal opposition".

but yeah sure, we're brotherly nations. nothing but love between ukraine and russia. ironically, the last appearance of ukraine in hetalia comics as of now is a comic from late 2021 about how much ukraine loves russia. since then it seems himaruya has been too much of a coward to draw her again. thank fuck, really.

and fandom is no fucking better by the way. whenever i go into hws ukraine tag it's still half full of fanart of "soviet siblings" (the fucking audacity to use that name too), showcasing that "brotherly love" between ukraine and two aggressor states towards it.

but y'know, a lot of people in this fandom will claim that it's apolitical, that these are just characters. so, a few questions:

if it's apolitical, why does hetalia cover political events, like brexit?

is a country not a political entity? is a nation not a political entity?

is the genre of satire not political?

if these are just characters, why call them country names? why not just make them your human ocs? why tie their lives to historical and political events?

it just doesn't make sense to me. "it's not political" is an incredibly flimsy excuse. everything that has to do with portrayal of countries and cultures is inherently political. and if you want to be a decent person, there's a responsibility to portray these nations and cultures respectfully: do your research, talk to people from these countries, otherwise you're building with no foundation. it's not even hetalia-specific advice, this applies to writing any character from countries different to your own.

this was. very long. can't think of how to shorten it nor i really want to, i tried to answer this as fully as i could.

there's not much point in explaining all that to people who after 2 (10) years still don't get what the problem is. i expect this post only to get attention from people who already agree with it, and mostly ukrainians. but eh, maybe a miracle will happen and someone from outside my bubble would read it.

ABSOLUTELY. FCKING. TRUE.

Out of all the European countries in Hetalia, I feel like Ukraine was done dirty. I haven't been able to read the comics much, so I'm going off of the anime here. But wow does the anime do her so dirty. Not just because they used her to fulfill the whole "big-boobed anime girl trope", but because Ukraine is actually a very strong country, and I feel like they portray her as weak and pathetic. It just bothers me.

Now, I don't mind a female character with a bigger chest. By all means, draw and animate characters with different body types. I'm all for it. But the way they ogle her chest and add sound effects is just too much for me. I get that it's anime, but still.

Granted, we could go on and on about other characters not being portrayed well, but I will never get over how they disrespect Miss Ukraine. The girl deserves so much better.

.