Some Concept Art For Ukraine Where I Tried To Apply Some Of My Headcanons To Have Fun With Her Appearance

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

Unfortunately, hetalia is notoriously bad when it comes to accurate representations of political and historical relations between nations. Russia is the most obvious example with both the show and a distinct portion of the fandom being too uneasy with the idea of portraying the absolute hatred most if not all Eastern European nations feel towards Russia. Actually, the main reason hetalia is so widely hated by most people who happen upon it is because it tries to downplay these conflicts to try and make the show completely unpolitical, so instead of correctly portraying the baltics or Ukraine for example at least heavily disliking Russia, they try to make it into this massive joke where Russia is this scary (but of course ultimately harmless which is even more gross) goliath of a man while the baltics are these snivelling cowards who fear Russia but don't hate him (because of course not)

And I'm sure a lot of Russians have issues with how they're portrayed too, but it's not nearly as heinous. The best way to portray a character in hetalia is to try and actually look into the history and culture of this nation. Hell, tumblr is a huge platform, I'm sure if people wanted to accurately portray a nation, they could just go and ask someone from that country for their opinion, and if even that is too hard, they could at least make the character completely blank and flat so they don't end up offending the people of that nation.

I can totally see why having a character that's supposed to represent my country in a fun and digestible way be this stupid, snivelling coward who has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Honestly, how is that supposed to reflect on actual Estonians who didn't elect that as a representative of their history and culture. This show was literally banned in South Korea because of how their country was portrayed in it. Heck, I've had my issues with how my own country is portrayed, and I've always said that much. Ukraine's portrayal is actually just a war crime in my opinion.

So, yeah, it's not exactly surprising that hetalia gets a bunch of hate.

Also, I know I'm probably not the best person to make a comment on this as I am actually a hetalia account, and I've actually had problems with this before where I have incorrectly based my information on a country through hetalia. It's just so shitty because most of the people who are guilty of this literally just don't know how to accurately portray these nations because of the harmful stereotypes hetalia has enforced. Nowadays, I try to reach out to people from the nations I post about to ask about my content before posting it. I avoid tagging nations that I know are often portrayed badly in this show.

Yes, hetalia is supposed to be harmless fun, but it's only that way for the countries that Himaruya thinks deserve it.

Anyway, sorry for the rant.

I had to take a few days to digest this ask. It's a long one, for sure! It's good to know some Hetalians are critical of the source material and understand why many people are upset with the show.

I will reiterate that the blog I reblogged and criticised deserved it. I understand they have been called out before for inaccurate portrayal that borders on ignorance at best.

I am aware that me reblogging a smaller blog is not great. Then again, @ask-computer-nerd-estonia has unforgivably crossed the line.

Estonia and Russia are not friendly countries. Russia has occupied our lands, tried to kill our people and threatens our existence regularly.

To say, even in character role-play, that these countries are friends is a gross misrepresentation of actual facts and history. Doing it days away from the anniversary of one of the worst days in Estonia's recent history and tagging it in a way Estonians will see it (by using the words "estonia" and "eesti" in tags)? Well, absolutely tasteless.

SKSHSKGSJS HER

Was too busy to draw anything new, so let Ukraine be:

"Shut your fucking mouth, it suits you well."

she’s glad dick-tators do not live forever

72 years ago, on the 5th of March, the fucker responcible for the forced collectivisation, holodomor famine, the great purge and the execution of an entire generation of writers, poets, artists, thinkers that were first led to believe into a communist utopia; mass deportations, constant and brutal supression and destruction of national identity — and that to speak only of Ukraine, the list goes on and on, — was found dead in a puddle of his own piss, for he had paranoicly fired the only guard and doctors that still somehow tolerated him at that point. Joseph Stalin I mean.

I drew Ukraine bc the café in Washington in the original photo was serving free borscht (борщ) that day, a Ukrainian dish. And who‘s beside her on the right? Well. I suppose there‘d be LOTS of candidates among the nations. I‘ll leave that up to you to imagine ;)

idk if its a hot take, just a dilemma that makes me stand borderline on quitting the fandom.

Is re-interpreting a really badly portrayed character, but still leaving them within hetalia «frameworks» does worse in the long term as it is still supporting Himaruya’s shitty portrayal, or is it for better, as it is better for a re-interpreted version to exist at all then to not exist? damn.

~ (¯´★`¯)

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.

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

🫂🫂🫂

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 🤝

Final round of my Brandenburg doodles using using  ヒラ’s old Brandenburg OC design because its my friend’s favorite. 

I‘ve been thinking about 1р Ukraine‘s human name (again) – and yes, I know I was screaming that I like „Mariia Chernenko“ for her, but that was before I knew Chernenko was just randomly added by a translator; besides, I was influenced by another character called Marichka/Mariia at the time and I kind of drifted away from that idea 🫠

And now I feel it kinda doesn‘t fit her and is kinda generic; not in a bad sense, rather that it is a name rather popular all throughout the world…not specific to her

So I‘ve been thinking — there is a nameform that half the names Hima suggested for her (Iryna, Kateryna) + some other common Ukrainian names (Marina, Daryna, Oryna, Karyna, you get me) can be shortened to — And its Ryna/Rina (Рина); short and simple

🤔🤔🤔

Sounds like a compromise. What do y’all think does it fit her?