I Think, Being Ukrainian, The Cherry On Top To Just Living Through A Genocide Of Your People And News

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.

at first I saw the new art and thought oh no arthur did u die but then no way is he going to heaven

original meme:

ARTHUR KIRKLAND ENTHUSIASTS WAKE TF UP!!!

Happy Valentine's day

8 April 1866 • A secret Italo-Prussian Treaty was signed

…according to which, Romano agreed he’d help kick Austria’s ass, and Prussia guaranteed he’d not back off from the war until Veneciano’s reunited with the rest of Italy.

Now, why Romano, you may ask, if the Risorgimento was initiated more so by the North? Well, in my interpritation, it all started with Sardinia/Piedmont-Sardinia/Savoy, (a separate OC because she deserves it), whilst Romano joined her in 1861, – who had been the Kingdom of Two Sicilies under the Bourbon rule prior, his people voting 98,5% to join. Thus, the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861; with Venice still living under Austria’s rule up until 1866.

And it was mailnly upon Romano to be the Kingdom of Italy in the next 5 years. Not that he had ever wanted it.

[As you may have noticed, I got into PruMano and Risorgimento simultaneously, god forbid. And I’m trying not to trail off, but I’ve got a detailed version of the events’ interpretation in my head – what happened to Sardinia? why is it Romano and Veneciano, out of all, specifically, that came to be modern Italy? What about the Papal States? — but more on all that to come🫢]

The last thing I’ll add, is that though I tried to make their uniforms nerdy af accurate, basing Romano’s off Sicilian Regiments’ Chivalry and Prussia’s off high-ranking Prussian commandment on general, this is still a silly anime bois fanart first and foremost lol. Take nothing seriously

Popular Christmas song "Carol of the Bells" is based on a Ukrainian song called "Shchedryk" and was originally arranged by Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych. In 1921 undercover soviet state agent asked to stay the night at composer's' family home. In the morning he killed Mykola Leontovych and robbed his family.

"Shchedryk" was created while Mykola Leontovych was staying in Pokrovsk, city the russians are desperately trying to capture and are turning into ruins right now:

Sasori: Did it hurt when you fell?

Deidara: From where? Heaven? Or in love?

Sasori: Brat, as much as I’d love to save your ego, you just faceplanted down a flight of stairs.

Just a little comics about Sasori being worried and Deidara being Deidara. I kinda messed the order up, but there are numbers in the corners so here we go

🇺🇦🌻

does ukraine paint her nails? 💅

Excuse accepted? The thing is, she‘s most likely genuine. Also Felix paints the nails for her, most likely…they are short gells, yeah

Also shout out to the sunflower embroidery on her jacket, she did it herself. She usually either goes for traditional patterns or sunflowers. And the little neck jewelry is called a 'sylianka' (силянка), lots and lots of tiny beads woven into a pattern and sewn to a ribbon. I love messing with her outfits as you probably noticed. Headcanon number 918282, she wasn‘t allowed to wear anything vaguely traditional whilst forced to live at russia‘s, so compensates now by incorporating traditional elements into her looks as much as she can. And it looks cool, so why not

Murderer: I want to keep murdering. I killed this person's entire family, and if I stop, it's only to catch my breath before killing some more. The victim (bleeding, fighting for their life, surrounded by the dead bodies of their loved ones): I want to live. I want to survive. Trump: I am in the middle, I’m for both the murderer and the victim. Also, I'm giving the victim this amazing, great, huge, really good opportunity to sign me off all of their possessions, completely voluntarily, in exchange for me not helping the murderer (probably)