#THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE IS UNDERRATED OKAY????

[arthurianlegend144]

I think the Hetalia Fandom doesn't appreciate Turkey as much as it should. He is a hot daddy who makes daddy jokes and likes to cook and be fashionable, how that's not cool??

Also his Ottoman Empire era. My man literally killed the Roman Empire (this whole shit about the Byzantine Empire is so weird! They were called the Roman Empire still, call it by its actual name!) and just declared to be the continuation of Rome. Like that's so fucking cool and the empire survived for so long. Of course in the end things didn't go well, but still there's so much history that we could be exploring!

That's my hyperfixation moment, thank you. I hope you all read this imagining someone speaking hysterically while intensely gesturing with their hands, because that's my energy right now.

[wahbegan]

Oh yeah i know there’s some confusion over this as well the “HIsTOrIcAL” Dracula and whether Dracula is supposed to literally be Vlad Tepes etc. so lemme just do a bit of sorting fact from fiction there

1. Bram Stoker very clearly got the name “Dracula” from Vlad Tepes and like i said, based on the descriptions of his eyebrows and hair and “aquiline nose” and ‘stache, PROBABLY based his appearance on him in an “okay but make it look like you didn’t copy” kind of way, but there’s no notes confirming this. Most people think he picked Dracula because he thought it was cool he was like “Woah that means Son of the Devil that’s perfect for my Gothic Horror villain” and knew very little about Vlad beyond that

2. Beyond that, no Dracula was not canonically supposed to be Vlad Tepes and was not, most people think, openly based on him historically

3. Vlad was the Voivode of Wallachia, an entirely different bit of Romania to Transylvania, for one thing, and for all the horrible ghastly shit he did, he had no reputation of being an actual vampire. Dining amongst corpses of impaled victims and the odd rumor about dipping bread in blood, yes, literal vampire, no

4. It is at this point almost impossible to separate fact from exaggeration and downright fiction regarding the actual atrocities Vlad III committed, but he loved impaling people, psychological warfare, torture, and guerrilla warfare, which he employed against the Turks. No, he never used rabid bats in any attack, but he did apparently send people with horrible diseases to infiltrate enemy camps

5. Tepes btw means Impaler and Dracula can mean either Son of the Dragon, or Son of the Devil. Vlad III’s father, Vlad II, was also known as Vlad Dracul or Vlad the Dragon because he was a Knight in the Order of the Dragon. Hence Vlad III, Dracula, Son of the Dragon. The Son of the Devil translation is just one of those...happy accidents that happens sometimes with words and double meanings. You know, like Anthony Weiner. 

6. All we know about Dracula’s past in the book is that he comes from a long line of Boyars he’s very proud of, and he fought the Ottoman Empire, which also maybe was based on Vlad III, although y’know The Ottoman Empire and Romania generally weren’t great pals. We know he was feared and respected, a great military leader and patriot and scientist of sorts and magician, who went to the Scholomance which was this purported secret school in the Carpathians where The Devil taught a few select pupils Black Magic, and used said Black Magic and sold his soul to become a V A M P I R E BLEEEH BLEEEHHH

Anyway, there’s no motivation given as to why he did this in the first place, one suspects he’s just a bad bloke. I actually really like the explanation provided in Dracula Untold, which wasn’t a GREAT movie but I think was underrated, that he did it in desperation to try to save Romania from the invading Turks and ended up turning into something worse.

7. Bela Lugosi was Hungarian, and a Romanian accent wouldn’t sound like that

8. There was no tragic romantic angle in actually the real Vlad III’s life OR the original novel, we have “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” y’know the movie which is fucking confusing to thank for that. In fact, Dracula’s one interaction with Mina Harker in the book is depicted as incredibly traumatic and violating and is pretty clearly supposed to be like a Victorian version of a rape scene so it................ruffles my feathers a bit that the entire world ships them now thanks to Francis Ford FUCKING Coppola

9. Because of his anti-Ottoman campaigns and strong leadership, despite all the nasty tyranny and war crimes and w/e, Vlad III is a popular historical figure in Romania and they tend to pretty much fucking hate Dracula

[rareandunpophetaopinions]

“Turkey is SO goddamn underrated. People either hate him for no reason or make him so out of character: I only see him either being a pervert or raping someone in fanfics, and other than that, he's being a jerk... Just no. He's a sweetheart with a sense of humor! He literally helped Italy from a guy who stole his camera, and tried to cheer up a crying Spain in the comics! There's NO reason to treat him like this! If anything, he's one of the BEST characters! Give him love! He deserves it so much!“

Added a trigger warning in the tags just in case.  First submission to do so.

God, as a Turkey fan, it really is frustrating when I see people do this.  However, I can think of reasons why:

1. He “gets in the way”.  Like France, Turkey gets a lot of flak in the shipping community (I’d argue he’s probably the male who gets it the most after France): Giripan, Spamano and a sprinkle of PruHun and RomHun fans (I haven’t seen it with AusHun yet surprisingly) seem to enjoy making this guy the bad guy and beating him to oblivion.  This is honestly what made me hate Giripan a lot - because of course, Japan wouldn’t go with “jerk” Turkey when “nice guy” Greece is there who can do no wrong.  Never mind that Greece can be quite the jerk, too.

2. He’s not young and pretty.  Instead, he’s large, bulky, masculine, and one of the older nations.  Of course, the fujoshi won’t care about him.  It’s especially hilarious though when I see Western fans claiming Turkey’s not good enough in their m|m ships while in Japan, he definitely isn’t hated as is actually well-liked by bara fans.  Bara being the genre that was made for Japanese gay men to cater to Japanese gay men.  Also, notice how England’s quite the jerk yet there are fans who excuse his behaviour? While Turkey gets criticized for it?

3. His days as the Ottoman Empire.  This one I can see as being the most reasonable since at least there is truth to it: the Ottoman Empire was definitely not a friendly and fun time.  Though even then, the nations do change over time and I’m pretty sure everyone’s done something horrible: so there’s really no excuse on why fans are excusing some characters (England) yet refusing to do so with others.

4. This expands on the trigger warning and for that, I will give one last heads-up since you, my viewer, deserve to feel safe and in comfort.  

Ready? Okay, let’s go.

There was once a very popular artist who could really mimic Himaruya’s style.  She did a shipping doujinshi that depicted Turkey as being, well...a rapist.  People were, unsurprisingly, not happy with this and things got heated where the artist’s white knights came in.  However, this point is probably the least likely reason for the Turkey hate since a lot of fans were angry at the artist’s depiction of Turkey along with the objectification and treatment of the other party. But if you typed up “Hetalia Turkey Himaruya” you’d see the artist’s works as well, and some people may have seen pages of the doujinshi, got curious, and...yes.  That’s all I have to say.

TL;DR: Mod V likes Turkey and wishes people would quit beating him for not being a pretty boy or getting in the way of their ship or apply double standards. And please, if you’re going to handle a subject like rape, don’t make it romantic (just no), don’t play it for laughs (just no), or pointless angst drama (why...?) - that’s horrifically offensive, distasteful and seriously screwed up.

- Mod V

[tartts]

would you recommend and i darken? i've been hesitant to go blind into ya since tog betrayed me

i haven’t read tog but i feel like and i darken is a whole different ball park tbh? like completely different in every way. like yes it’s young adult (supposedly, there’s some aspects of it that idk about and i feel like the violence/sex may escalate as the characters get older but that’s up to the author on how to write that) but tog is fantasy and it’s super long and drawn out and i’ve heard everything’s gone to shit with it but

And I Darken:

not fantasy. there’s no magic. just normal people in the 1400s.

it’s historical fiction and even then, it’s actually based off real historical events and real people.

it’s centered around Vlad the Impaler’s life, except the author changed Vlad into a girl for her narrative, so... Lada the Impaler

And I Darken is the first book in the trilogy. only a trilogy. the second book is coming out in June i believe. no ridiculously long series like tog

From what I’ve read about Vlad the Impaler’s actual life, And I Darken was like.... surprisingly accurate. the author did her research before. i could tell.

so, Lada and her younger brother are the children of basically the king of Wallchia, who is allowed to rule because the Ottoman Empire says he can.

their father does some shit (i don’t remember what) and they end up getting taken as political prisoners by the Ottoman empire (in exchange for their father’s cooperation or something so their father can continue ruling) when they’re children and are forced to grow up there

however, the book is told from both the perspective of Lada and Radu, how they end up meeting the son of the sultan, and how that son becomes the sultan. the three of them grow up together.

Lada is not..... very approving of the Ottomans and doesn’t understand their religion and doesn’t agree with certain aspects of it. (however, i feel like this is warranted given the fact she is a political prisoner and is being forced to assimilate to their culture and given her personality, she definitely doesn’t want to be the woman she’s expected to be by them)

even if the book could be seen as islamophobic (i’ve had only one person tell me tbh and i personally don’t see it at all but i am white so note that), Lada’s skepticism and disapproval (mainly of the multiple wives aspect) is balanced by Radu’s perspective. He loves the ottomans and their culture, he loves islam, he ends up converting to it, etc, and it’s real. he really does take comfort in their religion and that’s good for them. i think that representation was very nice.

even then, Vlad did end up going to war with the Ottomans irl (which i’m sure will be covered in the later books), so unless the author wanted to completely butcher the story to fit the modern perspective better, there’s going to be some conflict. that’s just how history works. this did take place in like the 1400s after all.

Radu is gay! and, surprisingly, no, the author didn’t add it just to be more new school or to get the gays(tm) to read it. Radu was gay irl (or possibly bisexual, it’s hard to tell with history) He was the sultan’s male consort irl, but he did end up marrying a woman and having children, I guess.

also it’s amusing to note that Lada is very ugly (in the book. idk if vlad was irl or not) and Radu is very beautiful and even in history Radu was called like Radu the Fair, Radu the Handsome, Radu the Beautiful.

There’s technically a love triangle between Lada/the young sultan/Radu, because Lada is conflicted with her feelings about her homeland and heritage and still cares for the new sultan, and Radu is gay and he cares about him too. Not much has happened between the sultan and Radu but I’m sure that will be explored in the later books. tbh i think this is the first love triangle i’ve read about that wasn’t a girl trying to decide between two guys, but a guy having to choose between siblings lmao)

basically yeah And I Darken is just about them growing up together and I think it ends off with Lada being an older teenager? there’s some war and some fighting and some life threatening dangers. all that good stuff. i really loved how it ended and am excited to pick up the next book to see where their story goes.

Personally, I liked it quite a bit. Lada is a very interesting and ruthless character and I do love ruthless characters. Lada is all sharp edges and sharp wit and Radu is soft and caring and balances her out quite nicely and I’m glad we got to see everything from both perspectives. However, I did not know at the time that it was going to be a trilogy, so in my head I guess I assumed there was going to be a bit more head impaling because I thought it would cover her whole life, not just the beginning of it. So I thought there was going to be more action than there was? There was action, yes, but just not what I had envisioned. Anyway, I’m definitely excited to see where the trilogy leads because it DEFINITELY shows promise and will be purchasing the other books when they are released.

Okay if you have any more questions let me know! It definitely doesn’t have a big fandom but I think it’s underrated for sure. Hopefully the next books are really good. It may become one of my favorite series.