stirringwinds

[stirringwinds]

Contributor applications are now LIVE!

Before applying, please make sure to read the guidelines as linked in the application! Contributor applications will remain open until May 4th, 11 PM EDT.

https://forms.gle/CXvMqubPR1w2jukB6

Reblogs are appreciated! We can't wait to see what you have planned for this round!

#!!!! #i participated in last years' #check it out if you're interested folks #hetalia #boost #zine

[stirringwinds]

T.aiwan and P.hilippines for @sketchytea and @agentomato c: Thanks for sending requests!!

#still feelin really sick and fatigued but this fanart brightened my day #i love the warm colours u gave 'em op #hws philippines #hws taiwan

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@agentomato draws america so well + the amount of work they put into the razzle dazzle zine is inspiring. From the design to organizing the all the creators to make a zine filled with beautiful works, it’s truly a gift.

♥♡∞:｡.｡ 　Positivity for @agentomato ｡･::･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

#💯 #i really enjoyed working on the zine

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“Father had an empire, Stretched down from the heavens To the depths of hell… Now those days are gone, Now you have the heavens, All that lies beyond, And all the hope I claim Since leaving me undone.  You have my hands — forgive me. You are your father’s son.”

1945; i’m always here for an old king / crown prince dynamic between arthur and alfred.

#my art #art reblog #hws England #hws America

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king of kings

my lady iran oc, as the achaemenid empire aka first persian empire 👌🏼been too long since i revisited her. 

#art reblog #my art #hws persia #hws iran

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dramatic breaktime doodle

#!!! #yes #hws taiwan #hetalia

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dies natalis solis invicti

#blood// #hws Spain #hws Rome #the ‘glory’ and shadow of classical antiquity #to me it’s an ambiguous dynamic yknow not really father and son the way it is for the itabros #but what’s unambiguous is that imperial influence #I like thinking about how others might see Rome—since in canon we kind of see him from the italybros pov #and some things in it do mirror a father and adopted son #in a manner of speaking #Rome really did name him #rome as an empire and great and terrible rather than a joking grandpa (because he can be both no?)

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arthur feels to me like somebody who can be extremely unhelpful when someone is having a crisis because he just scoffs if he feels it’s overblown and I genuinely think being the medieval eldritch he is warps some of his and his fellow Europeans’ standards. He can be very “good grief, I thought there was actually a problem. Why, in MY day—” but sir lord father of course has many sides; and I think he can also be helpful and an oddly good listener in his own way. like yknow, he’s like the way someone’s nan will be all “goodness! What have you got into now? You look a frightful mess!” and then cluck his tongue, grab you by the arm saying “well, sit down and have a chocolate biscuit while I put the kettle on and you can tell me what’s wrong!” In Arthur’s world there is no crisis that can’t be solved (or at least ameliorated) with a pot of tea. I feel he’s like this @ Alfred and Matthew especially. Sometimes you get option 1 but other times he is 2. I feel like he gets better at this after wwii; kind of a post war and post imperial mellowing.

#sorta shitpost but not really #hws England #hetalia headcanons #hetalia

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east asia 1/4: korea

#hws south korea #im yong soo #hetalia

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nedpan vibes in 1600: battered but ambitious castaway meets shogun, aka "behave yourself or get beheaded weird foreigner, i don't trust you but i trust portugal and spain even less and if you're at war with them hmmm...enemy of my frenemy potential there. tell me about foreign affairs will you so i can cross-check portugal’s claims, oh and draw me some maps too… hmmm you know we should have tea in my quarters where you can talk more foreign affairs and we can play shogi just for me to, y'know, pick apart how you think..." (sidenote: i love associating kiku with japanese black pine trees, especially since you see them painted all over the gold-foil screen doors in the shogun's castle/palaces.)

#nedpan #art reblog #hws japan #hws netherlands

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I have so many prompts to draw yet I am here, sitting in my chair, iPad in hand, drawing my comfort babies: ANZAC.

Pathetic.

If something's wrong with the anatomy don't tell me ill cry I've been drawing and looking at this for the past 3 h its warping and bending and im gonna puke

#pacific siblings #this is wonderful #i love seeing your interpretations of them #and the clothes you gave them too #it feels very practical and comfortable and sporty which feels very jack and zee #hetalia #hws new zealand #hws australia

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my personal hot take is arthur is a royalist but a regicidal one. hes an ancient eldritch who emerged from the Thames and has lived under monarchs since time immemorial. but English history is also that of parliament slicing more and power away from the crown over the centuries 👍🏼 so in that sense for arthur it’s like ah yes the tradition the crown represents yes my dears, it is a core part of my identity. but also ‘sovereignty of parliament is supreme, question that and perhaps that medieval axe over the fireplace shall be seeing use once more’ or ‘well! I would have considered becoming a republic had your odious uncle edward remained king during the war!’

#shitpost #hws England #hetalia

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if i understand right, fandom's preferred name for indonesia is dirga/dirgantara no? 🤔 or are there any others people have preferred?

#hetalia #hws indonesia #i am basing this off what ive heard so far generally #i think 'sky' is a pretty poetic meaning and from what i understand it's javanese with a link to sanskrit which is cool #re: reflecting ancient asian cross-cultural relations #tbh fandom-wide agreed names do make certain things easier lol #sometimes i wish himaruya gave certain characters human names too but at the same time some don't fit very well (like egypt's...) #so sometimes Naming By Democratic Mandate is the cool part of fandom

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nedpan vibes in 1600: battered but ambitious castaway meets shogun, aka "behave yourself or get beheaded weird foreigner, i don't trust you but i trust portugal and spain even less and if you're at war with them hmmm...enemy of my frenemy potential there. tell me about foreign affairs will you so i can cross-check portugal’s claims, oh and draw me some maps too… hmmm you know we should have tea in my quarters where you can talk more foreign affairs and we can play shogi just for me to, y'know, pick apart how you think..." (sidenote: i love associating kiku with japanese black pine trees, especially since you see them painted all over the gold-foil screen doors in the shogun's castle/palaces.)

#hetalia #nedpan #hws japan #hws netherlands #honda kiku #myart #samurai wear their katanas on the left waist but im taking artistic license for this ONE pic lol to have the scabbard closer to the viewer #ofc ned's hate for/enmity with portugal is also VERY situational lol. nedport really is a thing at other times #the portuguese priests being all 'these are pirates please execute them' @ the shipwrecked dutch in the 1600s well well well

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i like thinking about the helltalia nations and nature imagery, and with kiku we understandably associate him with chrysanthemums and sakura for obvious reasons but 🤔 another motif that i think is really nice to think about is the Japanese black pine (kuromatsu). first of all, we see loads of them in different aspects of Japanese culture: in bonsai, poems, art and woodblock prints including those by hiroshige.

and even more suitably—they’re painted on the walls and screen doors of places like Ninomaru palace, which was commissioned by the first Edo-era shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. everything in the decorations was political symbolism. it was explained that the shogun's power was represented with birds of prey, tigers—and the japanese pine trees—because they’re eternally evergreen throughout the seasons. ergo, ieyasu was making a point about the unending power of his family. of course, shoguns come and go, and whole regimes fall—but as a nation, kiku really is as eternal and evergreen as a black pine, compared to how the humans around him are akin to the beautiful but transient cherry blossoms of spring. i really like this thought because y'know, nations may not age, but they aren't unchanging statues unaffected by the currents of history either—and trees capture that blend of change and watchful immortality.

#hetalia #hws japan #hetalia headcanons

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sorry if it's a dumb question but i've wondered about the nations' skills or what suits their personalities, and who do u think would win in a swordfight between yao and kiku? japan does have such a kenjutsu culture but what about china, since china has a very old history too?

i have thought about this before, actually 🤔 when thinking about pre-modern sino-japanese power dynamics between yao and kiku. personally, i say it actually depends on which point in history. this is my headcanon:

before the kamakura period/shogunate (which overlaps with the sengoku/feudal era of japan) tbh I'd say yao wins. one reason is well, the symbolic power balance between china and japan. the first time china and japan properly met face-to-face in conflict was in the 7th century CE, during the baekje-tang war at the battle of baekgang in korea. long story short: it was a power struggle between korean kingdoms, and the korean kingdom of baekje (yong-soo's brother) was allied to japan, so japan came to help them. their enemy was the other korean kingdom of silla (aka: yong-soo long before he becomes south korea), who...was allied to china. despite being outnumbered 3 to 1, china pretty much crushed japan in that battle. then, kiku is very much an inexperienced upstart challenging the regional hegemon who has far far more notches on his sword. getting wrecked like that by yao is imo, quite a formative experience for kiku (to put it mildly).

but as the centuries go by, yeah no, kiku is the swordsman alright. because of samurai culture, and its elevation to power during the muromachi and edo period. further, there's of course the imjin war, where the samurai lord toyotomi hideyoshi invaded korea with the goal of overthrowing ming china too. even during the successive edo period/tokugawa shogunate, where japan was unified, far more peaceful under isolationism and many samurai became more like bureaucrats, i think kiku continued practising kenjutsu or at least in the form of kendo—swordsmanship and his swords became very much an extension of his personality and identity by then, as well as a way he'd blow off steam even during peacetime. his katana and wakizashi would always be properly maintained and you'd see him carefully oiling it with the mix of mineral and clove oil to prevent rusting, even during the most chill years of edo japan. they'd be nicely displayed like this somewhere in his quarters.

this is compared to how, for all that pre-modern china was an empire and all empires need military violence to expand themselves, warriors as a class in chinese culture never quite ascended to the same type of political prestige as the samurai. it was a very different cultural/political context. it's like, you can't underestimate yao still, as an experienced old empire (tm), but by the 1400s/ming dynasty, i think he might've shifted more to being that kind of general presiding over maps in his military tent, and directing strategy, compared to the younger warlord he was in his earlier years, who was down in the dirt all the time fighting in every single skirmish. so, while yao can and will get his hands dirty if need be with a blade, i think kiku edges him out by then in sheer focus, skill and devotion re: kenjutsu becoming a pretty core aspect of his personality/experiences. to me, it’s also an “old and experienced soldier surpassed by his younger, hungry protégé” dynamic too.

#hetalia #hws japan #hws china #hws south korea #hetalia headcanons

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i'm admittedly in the "nations sometimes have very intense relationships with humans who will go on to be important to their history" club and so i think kiku and lady murasaki shikibu (the heian-era author of the tale of genji) should 100% be a thing. no matter what kind of dynamic you see it as, it's like, the basic concept of nations interacting with and/or being muses to some of their greatest and most important authors? fascinating. literature and language is central to the soul of a nation too.

#hws Japan #hetalia #hetalia headcanons #honda kiku #kiku honda