#just less hetalia

[rosielefay]

Romano thoughts: He was spoilt as a child; growing up with grandpa Rome meant spending his childhood grazing on fruit and wine and not doing much other than looking pretty. They're Rome's grandchildren, he and his brother exist to be small and spoilt, to not engage with politics or war but instead take long walks in the emperor's gardens and laze around in the private baths.

But then the Empire turned Christian, and it started losing: the Huns, the Goths - barbarians coming in droves across the river Danube to bring reckless and ruin to its people. Eventually, Rome was sacked; Rome which sits at the heart of Romano's territory.

There's something very poetic about the transfer of power in the western world and Romano's authority figures. The shift from Pagan Rome to Catholic Spain. There's similarities between the two of them: the warm skin and the kind eyes, the desire to build empires and conquer nations, the flirty Casanova personality and their capacity for such endless cruelty.

And then of course, there's God. Of course he's a godly boy; he looks like a Renaissance angle, his olive tones and soft brown eyes. Unlike his brother, he has no smile lines or crows feet, his complexion betrays his upbringing: apathetic, decadent, unmarred.

But there's a scar on his chest, a little cross over his heart - a reminder of beloved grandfather's undoing, of his own unwavering loyalty to Spain.

He loathes himself, the boy. Catholic guilt they say, the belief that something is inherently wrong with oneself - the original sin. Maybe it is a product of his devoutness. Or maybe, just maybe, its guilt: guilt for loving the man who champions the faith which killed grandfather. But he'll never be able to do anything about it, for he wasn't made to live for himself. Holy boy, he who exists to worship another. God, Rome, Spain - to sit at the feet of powerful men and resent its own weakness.

[cowboy-robooty]

sorry i lied. polliet grenade

[sunflowerpieivan]

I chose to be happy and made some potato pancakes for today’s lunch while no one home

Very beautiful photo of potato pancakes below

Maybe not so beautiful because I am not star chef, but my soul sings when I look at it

[staralite]

Alfred is like a rational person pretending to be a dumbass and Matthew is like a dumbass pretending to be a rational person

[fumblingmusings]

Hello, I saw your post about FrUK. It is a year old post, but I wanted to say that I feel like Spain and France's rivalry pales in comparison to France and England's, you should give England more credit I feel 😭😭 the latter rivalry's impact was still huge on respective nations, even if it wasn't always as equal as Brits make it out to be

Oh gosh, I would never argue that France and UK aren't tangled together for sure, nor would I argue against anyone who thinks the UK and France are permanently sitting in each other's top three most influential partners.

I just think... So to explain why I'm always a bit 'well yes but no' for them I mean, is The Plantagenet conflicts were very much a dynastic bickering between two families and England inserting themselves into French business, rather than 'the Kingdom of England' trying to overthrow 'the Kingdom of France'.

I think it was very much a French Duke based around West France (who was coincidentally King of England) quarralling with a French king based in Central and Eastern France. Does that make sense? You can argue it was much more of an internal civil war with troops from England being shipped over to support one side, rather than the clear-cut 1v1 conflict.

Like, it's based around different French Kings trying desperately to boot the other family off any claim to the French throne and gain control of land that 'should' be theirs. No French king ever really wanted England. Plenty of English Kings have wanted France, but only insofar in that they were French themselves. Normandy, Aquitane, Gascony, and England were all lumped together. England was useful because he gave them the title of King compared to the French lands, which were merely Dukes. That's the only reason England mattered in many respects in the 13th century. The Hundred Years War was based around a slight where England was not enough in of himself, his Kings were greedy and wanted more. The Plantagenet wanted those French lands back, and did horrific things to France in the process.

BUT!!! This for sure changes with time. By the time of Agincourt, it was not a French Duke with a supplementary English title of King versus the actual French King: it was now framed as England v France. One of the first instances of the great time that is English nationalism.

Like here, the French offer of peace in 1396 - it's all about how England needs to back the fuck off because there are bigger problems for the French -

It reads very much like Francis grumbling for Arthur to get a grip. We should be mates dumbo! It's why the Tudors I see as being such a huge shift for Arthur. He is enough, on his own, but he could be more. He, throughout that century, grows increasingly disillusioned with the mainland. He loses Burgundy and Portugal to Spain, and he loses Flanders to France. Those were his friends, you know??? He didn't have that many to begin with! They were taken as part of a broader dick measuring contest between Captiens and Habsburgs. England really didn’t feature in that decision making. Instead, Spain and France used England like a ping pong ball in their game to undermine the other. Ergo, Arthur cannot trust Europe. So he looks elsewhere for power and control. Cue the Americas. All an extension of this European conflict.

It's something I think Hetalia actually gets sort of right in the dynamic writing- England being seen as small and lesser and just plain envious and France only ever really engaging with him to crow about how much better the French are than England.

I suppose I just think of FrUK as being a shifting dynamic, which is always centred around Arthur's need to be on equal footing to Francis, and it takes him a long time to get there. It's just for the first 500 years, Arthur himself wasn't even of consequence to the people he looked to in order to complete this task (i.e. his Kings who weren't named Edward I or Henry IV). He was useful for his name - that bloody title of KING - and not much more. By the time we get to the Tudors, particularly Liz I, Arthur gets to hear he is the centre of the world, a beacon for freedom for Protestant Europe. I imagine then, the conflict between him and Francis becomes much more personal, ironically with Arthur dropping any claims to the mainland.

Arthur's priority is to make sure there's no single power on top in Europe from about 1500 on. Once the French had well and truly kicked out any Plantagenet pretence to their land, France's goal is to be the dominant power in (Western) Europe. Arthur will always butt heads with Francis. Francis will not necessarily always butt heads with Arthur, since Arthur has no want of being number one in Europe.

This has been such a ramble. This is long and confusing, sorry. I don't mean to sell FrUK short at all!! It truly is a rivalry and love for the ages, like God I have written too much here. I just felt like the Spain France element is critically undervalued in the English speaking fandom when I first spoke of them. At least, from 1000-1500, it's Francis against differing parts of himself (one of which is using Arthur as a brutal destructive hurricane in a misdirected payback for Normandy) . 1500-1700 its Antonio always. But 1700-1850, oh yeah, it's Arthur and Francis all the way, baby.

Or at least, that's one way to frame them! I hope this all makes sense. That's how I read the early years. At least. It's one way to read it rather! Not the only way. Not the right way, either!

Tell you what, I was reading Brendan Simms 'Britain's Europe' the other month (it was a pre Brexit narrative written trying to argue that we have never not been deeply tied into the mainland) and it's so interesting to me, how frightened we were of the mainland. I would love a book in reverse however, what actions did European states make to preempt or respond to English actions.

To contradict myself from all that above that is: There's this one bit about how, just after Charles II came back after Cromwell died, that France was invading the lowlands and how there was a bunch of European thinkers bemoaning England's withdrawal from mainland politics. England was seen (accurately or not) as a land of liberty. France was not. I just think it's a great little bit of storytelling:

Europe frequently banked on England interfering in French ambitions. These two didn’t have the courtesy to make their bizarre rivalry between them. Half the HRE, Italy, and the Lowlands counted on England's ability to shove themselves in as a bulwark against France. It crops up again of course during the 18th Century, then again during Pax Britannia and finally again (this time against Germany) in WWII. England has a history of being prescribed 'last man standing' when it comes to Europe. That is not to say that Europe is necessarily happy with them having such a title though hahaha.

It's a good wee book! Quick read for sure.

Sorry, gone off topic as always...

[corvussei]

Big boy <3

[tianshiisdead]

Im honestly pretty happy I found friends to talk abt fandom with privately because in this sort of fandom 'let people be' means racism is everywhere and never addressed and YOU would be the villain for pointing it out, and you block and mute but it's so widespread its hard to avoid and sickening to see, so you just like. Leave lol. And you realize after talking to friends that the reason there's so little content on nonwestern regions is because so many POC who mainly focused on their country/region got driven out similarly leaving the fandom as it is now

[eruverse]

Yet another IDNL headcanon bc I was having a Moment today and this one is based off of an actual convo. Anyway this is credited to @aroundthecoffeepot

Indonesia: adik, how do you deal with feelings that sometimes rage up inside you when you randomly remember England?

Malaysia: abang, I literally haven’t thought about that caterpillar eyebrown in a literal decade.

Indonesia: wtf do you mean a decade

Malaysia: wtf do you mean ‘wtf do you mean a decade’

Indonesia: wtf do you mean you lit never think about England

Malaysia: Why should I think about England abang?

Indonesia: wtf

Anw I was Very Surprised to learn that my literal neighbor basically doesn’t care about their former colonial power while 80% of Indonesian Hetalia fans would ship NLIDNL together and 99% have considered or thought about it at least once 😭

[council-of-beetroot]

It feels selfish of me to say but sometimes it hurts seeing people reblog from people who continue have constantly posted antisemitic shit.

I'm tired

[dappy-dappernette]

Ppl in fandom spaces be like: "We love bi/pan ppl so long as they're not actually bi/pan!"

[aberfaeth]

im five chapters into the city we became and well. well this is just hetalia for nyc boroughs innit

[sunflowerpieivan]

Since started using tube to bring pipe at festivals on metro (to get less questions) I can’t stop thinking time to time about something like school AU and Ivan carrying pipe hidden in a tube around school (it always makes a lot of suspicious noise, but maybe no one dares to ask)

And this, I don’t know what to say here X)

After this Ivan came to the classroom and helped Feli to find all materials he was looking for ★

[chocobox]

i think it's funny that hetalia is incapable of getting on trending because even the hetalia fans on tumblr don't actually care about or keep up with official hetalia stuff enough to post about it when anything happens. it's an odd little community on here of people whose experience with hetalia is just like a game of telephone completely divorced from what hetalia actually is

[baluciarz]

they purple

[bacondaddy]

Funny how that one dbdshow person has instantly shut up the moment I showed their receipts.

[resoyani]

‘es a tiney bti chubbay

Every piece of clothing he owns is like two sizes too big, including the jumpers he made himself