#45 days to my 20th birthday I’m screaming 😱😱😱😱

[elisabeth515]

God. I actually don’t even know why I gotten into history-

It seems like my interest towards history is here since forever.

Somehow I have written another post on this but this time I’m going to spill some more tea about my life. Well, I know you won’t really like to read some worthless ramble, so long story short, it was a bad time, and indulging into history and stories has been a way for me to survive in such an unpleasant world.

There’s several periods that I have or had been interested in, and of course, the Napoleonic era was one of them. In fact, in summary the histories that I’m interested in are mainly either in France, Germany (+Austria) and China (and Hongkong of course because that’s, Uh... where I grew up—sad days🌧).

Firstly, the Napoleonic era. Probably because my very first history book is probably written by a Francophile, so somehow I just got attracted by the stories of Napoleon and his wars (it’s pretty much told like a children’s story, to be honest). This is my very first time knowing that Napoleon is not like a “dictator” as English media had described. Well, here I am not saying that he’s a saint, but certainly the stories of his European campaigns were epics to be told... oh well wait for me to be cancelled by Meghan Markle stans😂😂😂😂😂😂 Well, the exploits intrigued me and that’s why I’m here talking shit about the marshal babies.

Then there’s another thing: musicals. Besides listening to “La Gloire à mes Genoux” religiously every day, I also love the musical “Elisabeth” too much, that I found myself learning about Empress Sisi, as well as the Austrian Empire/Austria-Hungary. With my interest towards 19th century Austria-Hungary, somehow I stumbled across other things like German reunification, also the second empire, etc. And well, so I just went into the rabbit hole of 19th century Europe anyways...

As you all who have followed my blog know, I also have an affinity to historical fashion—mainly 1850s to 1910s. It was a very accident that I accidentally stumbled across a video by Karolina Żebrowska (she might sounded a bit too pretentious to some but her youtube content is beautiful and aesthetic), and well I just got into it because somehow I watched more YouTube videos on fashion history thanks to our meme mum. But why 1850s to 1910s? I don’t know, probably it’s kinda similar to why I like Hanfu (ethnic dress of Han Chinese, which is unfortunately associated with some very xenophobic rhetorics...)—it flows in a very graceful way, also I love how extra our past generations can be.

Well, I’m fine with Regency/Napoleonic fashion but just something in it doesn’t really sits with me right—probably because they all reminded me a bit like snobs that I read in English class... also Bridgerton.

By the way, here’s my announcement: I’m going to start sewing and I can’t wait to party like it’s 1912🌚👌🏻 (it’s not a joke, I’m really going to make my summer wardrobe because fuck fast fashion I’m going to make my own outfits.)

In addition to 19th century, I am also kinda into WWII (and this is how I met Hetalia). It started from my curiosity towards the things behind the parodies, as well as my grandmother sometimes talking about her times during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong when I was a kid, and it died out after I got into Hetalia. It’s a totally different story, like I feel like we need to understand what our grandparents had done if we don’t want something like this to happen again. The lessons I’ve learnt from after all those weird jokes are very valuable to me.

Somehow, my interest towards this period was reignited by reminiscing stuff during lockdown—and this is how I (*re)discovered de Gaulle. It’s a very weird story that I can’t really tell in a short paragraph—long story short it was a kind of invisible string. For some reasons, I found him a very fascinating man that I feel so relatable to (and he’s so awkward and so cute like look at his pets I—just imagine a very serious-looking 6’5 man letting his floof messing around his office at home🥺). Also, I’m learning French and his speeches are one of my biggest motivations for speaking (urgh his speeches are just- like urgh, even his English is better than me when I was 14/16). Really, a short paragraph cannot really talk about my love(-hate) feelings towards Charles but there you are—sticks and stones never break my bones :3

Well, that’s all that I want to say. It’s quite a journey for me, like also I recently started reconciling with my heritage and getting some nostalgia (before truly moving forward), so sometimes you will see me reblogging Chinese history stuff as well. I can’t really say anything here because some of the details would take me a big chapter to explain (like it deserves a story of its own tbh). If anyone wants to talk to me, or wants to know more about the details that I’ve left off from this, just message me, I don’t bite just sometimes too pissed about how the world is going.

Question to all in the Napoleonic Era/Marshals fandom:

What about this period interests or fascinates you the most? How were you first introduced to it?

I’ll start.

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