The Bee's Knees

Multi-fandom | I draw hetalia if you're (understandably) not cool with that, don't follow!

[arschbiene]

Hey Pals. Disclaimer  about Me, My art and Hetalia below!

Please note before following that this is a pan fandom blog meaning I post whatever I want when I want to. I tend to keep things SFW. At this point in time, I am posting niche hetalia things based in prehistoric and medieval times.

Here are some relevant tags: #storybooklings  #hws prussia  #hws germania

Tags to block if you do not want to see violent or disturbing themes with minors: #Knight Terrors

if you are against Hetalia and don’t want to see it for whatever your reasons, that’s something I totally respect and understand. I keep my twitter and  instagram free of hetalia.

If you are wondering why you are blocked, 10/10 it’s because tumblr algorithm showed me behavior, thoughts or attitudes I do not find  compatible with my needs at the moment or if  I feel that your needs are not compatible with my art. 

Update: 08/30/2024

Just want to make it clear that in my personal boundaries that I have as a grown up with a job who just spent two years detached from the internet/fandom is my headcanons are not in any way attached to my political or personal beliefs and I truly think if you try to make assumptions/allegations on people based on their headcanon that you have an extremely toxic relationship with the internet and you need to reevaluate those internet boundaries.

Update 10/28/2020: Revised: 02/28/2024

I just wanted to use this space to talk about myself, my art and the hetalia fandom.

To begin, it’s important to know I’m a creature of habit; it’s really hard for me to leave places where I’m comfortable. This applies to homes, friends, schools, workplaces and fandoms. No matter how bad or unpleasant a situation is, I’ll usually stick around something just because the familiarity is comforting to me until I cannot take it anymore.

This is sorta where I am with hetalia. I have been in this fandom since I was 16. This fandom is the last dredge of my childhood: it’s a place where I grew up and most importantly, the sandbox I used to mature as a writer and as an artist.

However, even at 16, I understood the flaws surrounding the hetalia canon. 2009 hetalia received the same intense scrutiny and criticisms it is receiving in 2020. At 16, I was reading and digesting much the same dialogue as is going on right now.  

So....I’ve always understood and respected that this is a controversial series and people are right to find it offensive for any reason they do- because it is offensive - maybe not maliciously or intentionally so, but earlier strips show their biases and ignorance. Himaruya was a college student who probably never intended for this to go international; he was carelessly skimming serious historical tragedies and topics with anime tropes and bad jokes. I’m sure he’s aware of it too, Hetalia has a trove of deleted strips and revised and redrawn comics.

The fandom itself, is well, let’s just say people here have fucked up massively and even after 11 years, there’s still a lot of work to be done and the fandom makes an effort to be vigilant.

With myself though, I just want to use this space to say that I am a firm believer of being able to enjoy something while also being hyper critical of it. I also firmly believe that everyone has a right to enjoy something with any individual amount of commitment. I am a casual hetalia fan, I never really did much but scribble. However, on that note, I also refuse to treat old fandoms like shameful skeletons in my closet, there’s always a chance I may come back to the Hetalia fandom on and off, this fandom raised me since I was 15 years old. It’s a comfort to me. I am not harming anyone or anything by drawing the things I enjoy.

 I just want to say other than archiving my ask blogs (simply due to not having the time to comb through the content there), I will not be deleting or denying my hetalia fanwork. I am just moving on as planned because I have exhausted myself here. Why? Because I don’t feel that any of my work is that controversial.  I uh....ultimately just drew a lot of cute kids and floating heads (lol), here and there mixed in with a few comics that explore Prussia’s trauma as a human being - rather than a nation. (I like hetalia mostly for character based work - history is secondary to that)

I saw someone say to someone “Not everyone was 15 and playing nazi lovers with Italy and Germany in 2010″ and I think that’s a powerful rebuttal against this blanket demonizing the hetalia fandom is going through.  There’s this assumption its fans live in a hetalia bubble and don’t engage in greater media outside of it, but that’s simply not true. When it comes to any fandom that may have issues, personal responsibility of how you engage in it is everything. I’m not gonna say I was perfect, I’ve seen criticism about “making light of the crusades”, however, considering that was about 820 years ago and no one is alive who has been hurt by the crusades, i think I can give myself a pass on that lol but if you disagree, well, I’m sorry you do and you can feel free to block me based on that. What’s done is done.

ANY WAY, I never thought that the hetalia manga would could back or that we would see another season since everything sort of stopped in 2016, and I’m not really...feeling excited about it. 2009 feels like an innocent time compared to what we’re dealing with in 2020, I’m not sure Himaruya will be able to navigate the sensitivities of what we’re facing globally. But I guess we’ll see.

But I encourage everyone as with everything who still loves this fandom bc I still love this fandom, to ignore the hate ofc but just be aware of the criticism. Be informed. As hard as it may be to read, don’t avoid it. You need to know what the problems are to make sure that your own engagement is appropriate.

My parting words are: We can’t take responsibility for what everyone else is doing, we can only be responsible for ourselves.

AND THAT’S ALL.  Much love to you guys for staying with me all this time. Thank you.  

That being said, please see the original body of this Disclaimer:

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I just want to take a brief moment to say that if you’re someone who thinks every single piece of art/fic in this fandom has to beat its chest about a nation’s historical atrocities or else that means the creator is ignorant and thinks it’s “UwU so kawaii” then please do not follow/view my blog. I’ll be blocking indiscriminately and indefinitely those who express those takes especially about Medieval times because

#1 I am a casual hetalia fan, I’ve got one foot in, one foot out. I have been here for over ten years, I’m old af and tired af and I just honestly don’t have that level of investment to give a shit anymore and don’t want to be even a little involved in any hot takes circulating around. If you choose to view my content and then be offended, that responsibility is on you alone. Do it better and do it your way on your blog.

#2 99% of my drawings are stress relief doodles with zero to no thought to them, I work full time in a public service job and my job is a significant drain on my resources because primarily I deal with mentally ill/disabled/dying individuals. I would love to be able to draw fully fleshed out historical pieces that are 100% representative of the research and time I have poured into this god forsaken fandom  but alas, I do not have that much time, if I do do even a short comic, it is a miracle and in no way do those little comics fully encompass all my thoughts and understanding about certain time periods/characters.

#3 Hetalia is at the core already Alternate History because human personifications are 100% imaginary and do not exist. It is impossible to fully portray the complexities of history/culture/reality in the confines of a singular fictional individual. Some of us are better at doing it than others and that’s great, I applaud people who are trying their best. However, I personally feel this fandom/canon is an extremely flawed place to start harping on and on about flawless accuracy and looking for any sort of legitimacy in it. If I wanted to write a really droning, accurate story about the brutality of the crusades in full historical accuracy, I’d remove myself entirely from hetalia and write a historical fiction story from the perspective of an actual human being who is suffering during that time period. As it is, I will engage in this fandom at whatever  level of commitment to accuracy/historical fact I feel like depending on what I’m doing. Thanks and enjoy your sunday. OH...And read this about germania art while I am at it too lol

[sand-and-swamp-and-wildfire]

Functionally speaking nothing that happened to that body before Ludwig was in it concerns him but purely on an emotional level, it got buried and dug up and cut open and sewn shut again and at least one person handled those organs before they started working again and it's never going to belong to him the way other people's bodies belong to them but it doesn't really matter because it's the same thing as being born normally except in all the ways that it isn't. And it's really sort of horrifying and Gilbert did something bad, but not to him, just to the body that he's in now, and Ludwig only started being Ludwig once the bad thing was over so nothing bad happened to him. So?

[cirqueangelique]

for aushun week 2026, day one, prompt: stolen moments

He found himself pushing plates and cutlery away with a fumbling hand, the wine left to spill in the grass...

the earth watches the moon, but she's looking at the stars; chapter 2 - now rewritten! (warning: rated E)

some late 17th century nyo aushun

[doomspiral]

Doodle page, don’t think too hard about the timeline it’s all over the place. Tolvydas doesn’t interact with Wuotan/Odin much and when he does he thinks of him as someone else, but they’re all part of this drama.

[hhilfe]

okeejjj it's done! I hope you enjoy this comic. It is in no way a medium I am comfortable with but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have fun. Next time I'm not greyscaling tho.

Some notes under the cut because this pretty much only makes sense to me,,

Context: 1867 after Erszi’s marriage, not too soon but not too after either. They have had very little personal contact for a long time and haven't hunted together since the 18th century (after the repression of the h.ungarian rebellion, I imagine she gradually drops habits that remind her of a different way of life. Also, she's annoyed at him for the wars. She is not /as/ annoyed in this century because she has some newfound ambitions after the spring of the nations and is bitter since 1848 - read: she was ok with austrias ass getting a little whooped in the a.ustro-p.russian war. They have gradually picked up contact again and resumed the old habit following Erszi's suggestion. Gil is thrilled to see her back in the game. But generally speaking he’s a little disappointed that she didn't seize the opportunity coming with the severe weakening of the H.absburgs around this time to claim independence (like he was expecting - even the italys did it.). After the a.ustro-p.russian war he thought she would for sure, and he does not recognize this choice in what he thinks she would do, so he rubs it in. He was wrong in predicting her course of action but is not wrong in thinking she wants more. Erszi, on the other hand, knows that in the current e.uropean landscape she couldn't have survived on her own - and this union was the only way to remain relevant and avoid invasions. She is, however, building up frustration because the balance is still off and she thinks she /should/ be a big deal on her own, So when he hints to it it sets her off because it is precisely what she does not want to hear. She wants something that is unattainable and it is maddening.

On page 3: "Can you even s-(peak your own language)" a hint to some language drama that was going on in the aus.trian empire where bureaucracy and education was at one point to be legally done in g.erman despite the main language of the people in the country. It actually sparked a renaissance for the m.agyar language because scholars picked it up in protest lmao but at this point the answer is yes because those laws were taken down (if I am correct).

The knives: my own hc again but the bunny knife used to belong to Gilbert and he gave it to Erszi in one of their last hunting trips before they stopped (so it's an 18th cent g.erman hunting knife).

Antiques: the knife, their friendship, old habits. Antiques are objects that gain more value in time, are often looked after and maintained, and can sometimes be misunderstood in their purpose due to their age. I hope the meaning I wanted to give it comes across in the comic.

Sorry for the Fr.anz J.oseph jumpscare but I visited 2 hunting manors in s.üdtyrol and both of them had portraits on the fireplaces so that must be it everywhere in the a.ustrian e.mpire obviously.

anon this is uhhh for you??? sorry

Annd massive thanks @doomspiral for helping me out with some of the dialogue because I was STUCK and now it says what I wanted it to say. Ty <3<3

[euforri]

Some research and thoughts I was compiling yesterday

[euforri]

[cirqueangelique]

just doodling

[doomspiral]

Will you leave him alone, man

[cirqueangelique]

fic alert fic alert because i need a little break from history lessons

“What’s wrong with my dress?”

“Nothing,” he said, with a sly grin. “Your friend lend you that?”

She jolted. “Why—”

“Your zip’s undone,” he said, in a stage whisper.

i could keep your number for a rainy day;

ch 1/? ꨄ︎ rated M rising to E in short order ꨄ︎ pru/nyo!aus human AU

[cirqueangelique]

"I was going to go and count the money we don't have, to pay the soldiers we can't get, so I can train them how to use guns we can't afford, to perform better in battles we probably won't win," he said, wryly. Austria would have chastised him for the joke at any other moment.

"That sounds awful," she said, wide-eyed and earnest, beginning to climb atop him. "Never mind. It will cease to be a problem after the peace treaty."

"Because we'll be bankrupt?"

"Indeed."

the earth watches the moon, but she's looking at the stars;

chapter 5 now in existence after nine long years...

[arschbiene]

Sending hetalia is bad hate to a nearly 20 year old hetalia blog is like warning Odysseus that the sea is treacherous. He knows, he sets sail anyway.

[proosh]

how are so many people in the. well. i guess GilbertSphere of tumblr get so smart and all? so many of you understand gilbert and just overall historical hetalia so well and i want to post my takes on his character but i'm an uneducated hick so i feel like anything i say's just wrong on every level. and everyone's gonna throw hammers at me. i just checked out iron kingdom from my library and i'm hoping it'll help me understand him and the history better. i used to consider myself a history buff and a pretty avid reader yet compared to everyone on here i feel borderline illiterate. there's so much i just don't know and have never even heard of. i absolutely love history and historical hetalia especially but i don't know where to even start with it :(

oh dearest anon, I am taking you gently by the hands. the "hivemind" of Pru fans here are not any smarter than anyone else, and you are not dumber than anyone else. we like to play with barbies here, and we like to read a lot so we can play with our barbies in interesting ways. there is no Wrong way to play with barbies, as long as you're approaching it in good faith. everything is a learning opportunity, and we are all in some kind of learning process, and we like to take that learning process and use it in interpretative ways - everyone has their own process, and their own interpretation. my interpretation differs from other people in our loose circle of colleagues, and theirs are different from mine, and that's great! we very much operate on a sense of "yes, and," in our encouragement of each other, as opposed to saying that something is Wrong. (there are of course things that are discouraged, like deliberate/bad faith misinterpretation or the promotion of potentially tasteless or harmful ideas, but in my opinion there is always room for discussion and development). that you are Interested In Learning means that you're already part of the process! what I recommend is finding the Thing that makes your brain go brrrrr and digging into that line of inquiry, and then using what you learn to inform your interpretation; playing with barbies is first and foremost about Having Fun, not strictly literal academic historical repetition of information :)

[doomspiral]

Not everyone in the "Gilbert Hivemind" (this is a joke term for the most part, to be clear) is also part of the Nu Historical Hetalia subfandom, and frankly not everyone in the Historical Hetalia fandom is good at the critical analysis aspect of reading all the books and journals we love so dearly. Please don't be intimidated by a bunch of geeks who read all the time I PROMISE no one here is a real authority on anything.

That said! If you want to Do Historical Fiction, definitely take the Tolkien approach. Like Proosh said, it will be so much better to follow your interests and research the things you already like, and then use that to your advantage. Just because there's like 5 people circle jerking over tanks and big guns doesn't mean YOU have to in order to be taken seriously by fellow fans. All you really need is a general overview of an area's history and geography, which you can get from wikipedia, and then you're free to go hog wild studying the culinary practices of a single town in the 18th century or the contributions to online gaming done by a group from such and such county in whatever nation you choose. So on and so forth.

And if you're ever really off the mark, then you're wrong and you grow from that. Oh well. The sooner you make peace with the idea of Being Wrong About Something and not taking it personally or connecting it to your self worth, the better time you'll have playing dollies with us. And if someone does try to skin you alive for an honest mistake or the result of not knowing a topic as deeply as they do, just block them. there is no reason to get into any kind of serious arguments with other Hetalia fans on the internet.

Now please come play with us.

[arschbiene]

All of the above is extremely true as someone who is a more casual hetalia fan, I get along well with the more historical part of the gilbert sphere despite that being less of my focus so I won't add in any more reassurances, I haven't had any problems and I'm sure you won't either.

I just want to focus my advice on if you're curious and ready to dive in but the prospect of digesting a huge 800 page book, retaining all that information no matter how tiny the detail down to names, places, dates and then applying it confidently to creative work with no mistakes feels overwhelming and daunting.

The reason why it feels impossible is that it is impossible.

You're not gonna be able to read the iron kingdom cover to cover and then come away fully armed with a 100% success in committing it all to memory and an encyclopedic understanding of the entire 700+ years it covers.

It's not realistic, so let's just do away with that immediately. Throw that out. FREE yourself of your pressure. At best you will read this cover to cover and just get a general 50-70% of the content gist that will degrade with time. Even more realistically, you'll probably read like 40 pages, grow mentally exhausted, go to the table of contents or the index, look up things you're kinda curious about, read a few paragraphs that you like and then this book gathers dust on your shelf but you shit out like one or two amazing creative pieces that hit the mark without getting too indepth, AND THAT'S FINE.

THAT'S NORMAL. It's not always so realistic to continuously read books that are hundreds of pages long and I frankly do not feel that a lot of people even in the gilbert fandom have even accomplished it. We all know a lot about A LITTLE. All of us have our Niches that we are autisticly overly informed in. I don't think there's a single gilbert fan that can be quizzed on 900 years of history and answer in depth. Just not realistic. Just not possible. We all have things that we should probably now more about, probably intend to research more into and just haven't yet.

What you need to do is the following if it so pleases you to do so:

Pick a SINGLE era, event, etc a SINGLE moment of time that you find extremely interesting and that you have MOTIVATION to study for

Don't immediately go for the 500 page book, that is too big of a barrier of entry. Start with Wikipedia, start with a google, start with reading small contained passages.

SKIM WHAT YOU FIND BORING. It DOESN'T MATTER. SKIM. Anything boring, DON'T READ. If you make this a job, you WILL NEVER ever FIND JOY in it. SKIM. Religious nonsense not your thing? FUCK IT. economic lecture killing you? YOU DON'T SEE IT. Read only what you care about.

Open a google doc and start an active study Outline. Link sources, highlight dates, names, anything you think is important. When you have a headcanon about it, leave yourself a little comment about that headcanon so you in the future can connect it directly to the source that sparked it.

Creating an outline helps you be an active reader and put a bit more thought into it. Here is an example of one of my own WIP outlines if you need a more concrete example of how you can use an outline to guide your research

If it's not fun, don't read!! If it's stressful for you in that moment of titme, Don't research!! You are 1000000% allowed to have fun just vibing and doing unattached work, you are allowed to stop it and pick it up at any time!

Avoid sensitive topics if you are unwilling to do the research for it, be humble in your learning and know when a topic is out of your depth and you may not be ready to write or draw it. Like doom said, have the courage to be wrong and the humility to be corrected. 99% of the time, people won't bother you if you aren't touching sensitive topics with no knowledge.

I will end this saying: I regret all thee times I was too anxious and pressured by this feeling of "I MUST KNOW EVERYTHING!!" to engage in fandom in an involved way. I used to post art with no caption because I was tired of defending myself for every drawing. In the end the only person that can free you to do what you find fun is you, so I hope OP can find peace of mind to engage in the fandom in a way that is satisfying and stress free for them without feeling pressured in any direction.

[arschbiene]

"[Saint Mary’s Order's] walk from the well drew out to enable Lithuania’s struggle for freedom, a struggle that only seemed to drag him down deeper into the earth, deeper into the bones. He clawed at the wheat stalks, ripping them from their roots in a desperation to free his failing body, but it was the cruelty of a drowning man to drown also his saviors. Fistfuls of wheatberries, nailbeds of mud, blood on his teeth; Lithuania’s hair stuck to his face as he choked on filth, Mary’s glistening boots coming into level view just before the darkness enveloped him" - @doomspiral Call to Alms (Chapter 3)

Call to Alms is a loving tapestry of Doom's Hetalia lore; it's rich with fresh, thoughtful characterization and immersive worldbuilding. CTA takes us on a journey through time, seen through the eyes of several nations. With its historical depth, wide cast and poetic beauty, Call to Alms offers something for every Hetalia fan and is well worth your time if you’re looking for something masterfully crafted by a truly dedicated and talented writer.

[doomspiral]

IM SO. SPOILED. SOBBING. DO YOU GUYS SEE HOW BEAUTIFUL AND CINEMATIC THIS IS?????

[arschbiene]

“There was perhaps an instant between the end of Prussia’s aggressively triumphant speech- complete with shaking of his bouquet towards Austria- and the dawning of his realisation that he had let his mouth run far away with his brain. It wasn’t long enough to let him formulate any sort of regret, or indeed any escape, before he found the bouquet snatched from him and promptly slapped against his face. It was through a flurry of petals that he saw her furiously offended expression, her cheeks scarlet with some unspeakably dramatic emotion.” -the earth watches the moon, but she’s looking at the stars; by reaperangelique

I love @cirqueangelique writing so much, this has been a long time coming. I’m going to be slowly drawing some of my favorite moments because I love her fic AND THEse two so much, i want to just…Share it with Everyone I know.

[cirqueangelique]

my daughter is so BEAUTIFUL AND THE DEPTH OF FIELD THING???????? IS SO GOOD!!! very good i love you

[arschbiene]

My best advice as an old person in the hetalia fandom is that if you see someone being harmlessly wrong about your culture/nation, respond with kindness and grace. The barrier of entry of this fandom is getting really impossible if you cannot be new to your researching and build your meta/lore in a supportive and collaborative environment. Sometimes, the crash out you want to have on your blog has way more visibility than you think and it makes people not want to engage in your fave blorbos at all.

[sand-and-swamp-and-wildfire]

Assby said Dietrich would be a rat man so I acted accordingly

Mouse boy belongs to @arschbiene <3