#aph tuva

[aph-sarmkk]

Russia and the breakaway republics 🥀

[sea-of-machines]

Tuva and Mongolia

[irithnova]

About my Siberia ocs...

So I think it's important to balance their characterisation in a way in which they are distinctive characters with interesting personalities and backstories but also acknowledges the challenges they face without making their entire character essentially "They're sad all the time because of Russia" or "Stop talking about their struggles under Russia I don't like politics."

I think both are problematic however I find the latter to be far more distasteful because well. This is a nation personification OC we're talking about and not only that, they're essentially nations within a nation (Russia) by virtue of colonisation and so are minority groups within the larger nation. Hell - because of displacement and immigration from European Russia , a lot of these groups are minorities within their own lands. It's a special case when dealing with minority groups/occupied people personifications and it's particularly egregious when someone wants to forgo any kind of acknowledgement of these power imbalances yet still insists that their interpretation is sensitive.

I've seen some pretty bad OCs of Siberian groups which are the product of the creator going "I hate politics stop talking about politics!" or, an almost direct quote, "I hate when people shove politics into historical hetalia." Which... Is an interesting take to say the least considering how history feeds into politics and vice versa. Historical hetalia is a beast in an of itself and is one of the only hetalia communities/bubbles in which "no politics" will get you laughed out the door from what I've seen considering *gestures to my previous statement*. If you've ever taken a history course - you'll know how much history and politics are intertwined.

This is how you get interps which consists of the likes of "Russia was wandering around the empty lands of Siberia" which not only blatantly disregards the brutality of the Russian colonisation of Siberia but also promotes the concept of "Terra Nullius" or "Virgin Land". I'm quoting myself from an even bigger post I have in store which focuses on anti Mongolian sentiment however stereotypes about Mongolians and Siberian groups often overlap because of their placement in Northern Asia, hence why it applies to both,

"In addition, to hone in on Mongolia being an "untouched, pristine" land - this is also a common trope that is launched towards traditionally nomadic "unsettled groups” (such as Siberian and Native American groups). The concept of "Terra Nullius", a Latin word meaning "nobody's land". It completely disregards the presence and rights of the people who inhabit the land and has been historically used to justify the colonisation and displacement of such groups - their land belonged to "nobody" so it was essentially up for grabs...It divorces the people from their landscape and paves the way for dangerous misconceptions and justifications to blossom.

Here is an example of "Terra Nullius" in action in a Russian propaganda poster, encouraging Russians to move to Kazakhstan."

Or interps such as "[Siberian group] has forgiven Russia for everything he did/most things he did and is in love with him" which implies that the mistreatment of the Siberian groups is merely something in the past when it is in fact ongoing. The mistreatment of Siberian groups such as the Sakha, Buryats, Chukchi and Tuvans has been all the more highlighted in their disproportionate mobilisation in the invasion of Ukraine - and the heaps of scapegoating that was subsequently shovelled onto them.

That's not to say ethnic minority soldiers in the Russian army shouldn't be held accountable for their crimes - however that and the fact that they themselves are victims of Russian imperialism can both exist as true statements. The scapegoating is so bad that even Pope Francis joined in, blaming the brunt of the war crimes committed onto "Non Russians" such as Buryats and Chechens, as they do not come from "Russian culture."

Back to my main point... I think the resistance to do research on and publicly acknowledge how these groups live under Russia and what kind of struggles they face in some kind of bid to "not paint them as victims!!11" is sorely misinformed and ignorant. Because well. They are victims.

Not in the sense that you should portray them as sad, pitiful, weak little meow meows but in the sense that yes they are living under Russian occupation and are an occupied people who's been subjected to centuries of Russification, and so compared to making an OC of Mongolia who is an independent nation state at least I think there is far less room to be hauling around "leave politics out of historical hetalia!" "don't talk to me about politics!" "stop victimising them!!" because then it leads to tone deaf interpretations such as "They've forgiven Russia for everything and is in love with him ♥️💖", "Russia is actually [Siberia groups] father", "Here is my singular Siberia OC who represents ALL Siberian groups and by the way Russia is their father" (yes these are all real interpretations I've seen and I've made a separate really strongly worded post ranting about it) and worse. I mean I've literally seen an "aph Siberia oc" who was Russia and France's love child. Terra Nullius executed Hetalia-style.

I don't really think I need to elaborate on why a singular Siberia OC is problematic - Siberia is filled with a myriad of different groups who speak different languages, have different origins and ways of lives and practices, different religions, who've experienced eras of peace and conflict with each other, etc and yeah to shove them all into one personification is an erasure of the sheer diversity that is in Siberia. I definitely don't need to elaborate on why making Russia a father to any of these groups is problematic, to say very the least.

On the point of "don't only portray them in a victimising lense", I think making Siberian groups all depressed all the time is also a Russia-centric perspective. Of course it's ignorant at best to not acknowledge their shared suffering because of Russia however when this point and this point alone is central to their character I believe in a way that it strips them of their autonomy and ability to feel things and do things outside of Russia's gaze. There is absolutely a lot of joy to be had despite their current situation, perhaps even in spite of their current situation. It's ok to give them odd quirks and put them in funny situations as well as acknowledge that they are an occupied people and approach that territory carefully when need be.

For example, I made my Buryatia bubbly and loud but made my Tuva a bit more deadpan because I see them as a pair who often associate with each other and I think the dynamic is funny. I also made Buryatia an overbearing "husband" to Soyot who is perpetually tired™ from all the se- .

I made a crack dynamic between Sakha, Evenkia and Dolgan where Evenkia was Sakha's teacher at first but then became a deadbeat dad leaving Sakha to primarily raise Dolgan, thus Dolgan takes after Sakha and is uh lawyermaxxing👍. Yukaghir is the little old lady of the group who is often forgetful but very nifty and Chukotka acts like a big sister to people which Koryak (who I see as her brother) always finds annoying and they often bicker. Ket is on the slightly edgy side and is extremely particular about his routines and Nganasan terrifies Nenet because he eats reindeer whereas Nenet doesn't.

All of these quirks/ more lighthearted interpretations and "they are an occupied people under Russia" can coexist. One should not be thrown out for the sake of the other.

I think there's also problem - though I've seen this far less, in making Siberia ocs purely as a middle finger at Russia. As in, you made the OC because you wanted to say loud and proud FUCK RUSSIA which well yeah, fuck Russia, but I highly doubt your interest in this group lies outside of wanting to #own the Russians which is dehumanising in and of itself. At least pretend to care about the history and culture instead of using an entire group of people to make a virtue-signally oc purely to try and upset some Russians.

Anyways yeah Siberia 👍

[who1kio]

I'M BACK WITH MY HETALIA SKETCHES!!!

[peonycats]

четтирдим!! thank you for Tuva!!! as a person from this republic, I'm VERY interested in watching how my republic is portrayed. I want to add that we can be hot-tempered. and it seems to me that Tuva has an ambiguous attitude towards Russia. in Soviet times, there was no nationalism (?) from the stories of others and my family lol. so yeah an ambiguous attitude.

ahahaha sorry, I just madly love Tuva and when people talk about it.

(i just wanna see happy Russia and Tuva 😭)

AH HELLO!! Thank you so much for your kind words, and I would definitely agree with you that Tuva, who belongs to the lovely @irithnova, has a fiery side to him! When he's around people he doesn't know too well, he's more withdrawn and polite, but he's very proud of his traditions and culture and doesn't take insults lying down. He constantly gets into arguments with Mongolia over who throat sings better, and is notorious for being pretty crazy when drunk 😂 Him actually seriously losing his temper and blowing up is comparatively rare, though, so when it does happen it makes everybody in the room go:

As for his relationship with Russia, due to their history (of note are the circumstances that Tuva came to be annexed into the USSR) Tuva tends to be very distrustful of Russia, and tries to keep a low profile around him, given how the man's treated some of Tuva's neighbors >_> Russia for his part, doesn't really pay that much attention to Tuva beyond "has mineral resources" and "is poor" but once in blue moon does try to hang out with him, usually as part of wider efforts to ingratiate himself to the Siberian nations...

If I had to sum it up, Tuva prefers to mind his own business, so when Russia does actually remember he exists and actually seeks him out, he's pretty weirded out and wary of Russia's intentions, lol

[meliissa-art]

Mongolia in the Gangsta! AU

This AU is very random, but I wanted to draw him as a mafia leader, so... here you have him, with a poker card on his hands, as they play poker in the manga (I dont know why??? omg hima is too random sometimes)

Tuva and Buryatia are his bodyguards :)

[irithnova]

Ok I think. We need to appreciate how goofy/embarrassing Mongolia can be so here's the post (will be talking about edgier stuff at some point but let this man flop around if only for a second):

During the Yuan the words "buluo" and "buzu" were virtually non existent in important Chinese texts despite the frequency of the words used before. It's most likely this exclusion was not accidental and was a result of the Yuan rulers being sensitive to the barbarian connotations of the word. Yes Mongolia was offended by being called a barbarian by China and told him to stop

He was totally acting all new-money and spending his newfound wealth on the most ridiculous shit, like a literal fountain that dispersed 4 different types of alcohol

Thinks throwing money at things is some sort of fix-all

Went on a 40-day bender when Ogedei ascended to Khanhood

Did I mention he was an alcoholic?

Would take on the advise from advisors that came from everywhere but China.

Made his own version of a racial hierarchy with Mongols and other Northerners being at the top and Southern Chinese being at the bottom ("who's the barbarian now?!!")

Categorised his Chinese subjects into 10 ranks, with Confucian scholars coming 9th - below prostitutes

Chinese criminals got way harsher punishments than Mongol criminals

No sinicization here folks - this dude was NOT wearing Chinese clothes or eating Chinese food. In fact a lot of Mongol rulers never even bothered to learn the language. Mongolia probably knew it but would make China speak Mongolian with him anyways

Despite all this he was absolutely addicted to Chinese stageplays you have no idea how much Mongol rulers loved that shit

Got defeated by Ainu and response sent him gifts to try and get him on his side

When I tell you how possessive he was of Ilkhanate I was not joking, there were certain Ilkhanate rulers like Ahmad who tried to break free from Yuan influence by having the inscriptions of the coins refer to Islam rather than the Yuan Khan, but after him under Arghun, Yuan suzerainty over Ilkhanate coinage was reinstalled - it's speculated this was encouraged by Khublai (ruler of the Yuan)

Could not accept that the Yuan dynasty divorce was real and so called the remains of his empire the "Northern Yuan" ("You see the marriage never ended I'm just living in the Northern half of our house. It's called the Northern Yuan. Yes it's perfectly valid fuck off")

Went all surprise-pikachu-face when years of being a megalomaniac lead to his Northern subjects finally turning against him

During the four Oirat era, the Oirat confederation called themselves the four "tumens" (tumen = 10,000) of Oirats. Mongolia responded by basically going "hmm... FOUR tumen you say? Well... we are the SIX tumen of Mongols... Checkmate"

Again during this time, (Chinggisid) Mongols would record how Oirat rulers would "bully" Mongol rulers,. A lot of these accounts were greatly exaggerated as many of these so called Oirat rulers were actually just visitors who had nothing to do with the Oirats

The Choros Oirat clan had an origin myth that involved emerging from a sacred mother tree. Mongolia responded by hijacking this story and making it so that Genghis Khan came down and #defeated this tree

Definitely coped + seethed hard when the Dalai Lama started giving non-Chinggisid Mongols the title "Khan"

Once Mongolia was incorporated into the Manchurian-lead Qing dynasty, he was making almost all the exact same complaints China once made about him but now directed at Manchuria and did not sense an inkling of irony in any of it ("Why does this teenager think he can boss me around! He's uncultured and the only culture he gets is from me! He doesn't know anything about anything!)

During the era of communism and Russian influence in Mongolia, I've read that some Mongolians complained that the Russians "drank too much" errm... Pot calling the kettle blac-

Some non-historical ones which are still based in fact somewhat but just also overall goofy as hell:

He is weirdly freaked out by cats

He fucking loves KFC I swear there was even some Mongolian TV show about KFC workers.

His love for Chinese stageplays now has a 21st century equivalent: cnovels. Guiltiest pleasure

He's very... moe, around Tibet. Make sure to back away from them if you see them with each other unless you wanna hear some weird shit

Pretends he doesn't like Kpop. He does

Thinks calling Tuva a kleptomaniac rather than a thief is some sort of politically correct upgrade and doesn't understand why he's still offended by it

>"Buryatia should be a part of greater Mongolia again" #panmongolism"

>Makes fun of Buryatia for being "too Russified"

>"Inner Mongolia should be a part of greater Mongolia again #panmongolism"

>Makes fun of Inner Mongolia for being "too Sinicized"

If Kazakhstan is really annoying him he'll ask him if it's past his bed time

[peonycats]

Umm how do you think Tuva is/looks like? 🥺 I have my own OC /post of him but I'm considering altering how I characterise him a bit. I think he's a fairly proud but also chill nation who's faced a lot of adversity in his lifetime but obviously has his own struggles as a part of Russia (one of the poorest republics, went through a period of isolation under Russia) and is close to Mongolia:0 sorry I kind of went off xjsjdjsj

Sorry to take so long with your ask haha but I think all of your hcs are on the right line! and like the other siberian indigeneous republics, probably dislikes russia and would like to give him a good walloping if the chance comes- but he does like music a lot!

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