#posts by others

[h-didanart]

@atherflame-theconcubus

Rest with me... 🌷

[olympeline]

This post about how the fandom sees Alfred’s sexuality is intriguing to me as a non-American. Hetalia is a series that is equal parts built on history and stereotypes and, from the outside looking in, America’s stereotype has always been one of a society that’s keenly obsessed with sex (so like, literally every society lmao)…but also one that’s very ill at ease with it. American sexuality leans towards the conservative side by Western standards, while being very “in your face” about it at the same time.

It’s the old joke everyone knows: American media will happily show someone’s head exploding in close-up, grisly detail and nobody will turn a hair. But show one female nipple or - God forbid - a dick and suddenly their establishment goes full 1950s Hays Code.

There’s a grain of truth to it too. Last time I traveled I was up in Finland and there were lots of outdoor saunas with naked people around them. Our group was a mixture of Brits, Dutch, and Americans and it was the latter who were the most shocked when the young lads got cheeky and started dancing or doing hip-thrusts. Meanwhile the Brit-Dutch brigade (I call us the culinary cripples squad) thought it was funny. The Americans got into it too and joined in the laughter, but it took them noticeably longer. There was an initial shock-hurdle of “!! Oh my God, naked people! Dicks bouncing and flopping! In the wild!” to get over before they could relax and enjoy the show.

“Not relaxed” is how I might describe American vs. Western European attitudes to sex, actually. In my own British experience, it’s not that we see all Americans as prudes or puritans or anything like that. But that culturally Americans seem more stressed about sex. Americans don’t tend to do saucy or cheeky or “wink wink nudge nudge” very much. I think the lack of it makes them more nervous, which then makes them more uptight. I’m not saying the UK is some kind of free love Bohemian paradise or anything silly like that, but it is less stressed out than the US. Most definitely.

So how would all that translate to Alfred, the personification of the US? If I had to think seriously about Al’s sexuality, then I would picture him as the kind of young man who is absolutely hungry for sex and thinks about it constantly. Who is keen and enthusiastic but in a very surface level, very young way. He would boast about conquests or whatever but when the time came to perform, the poor guy would be shitting bricks. Especially with an older more experienced partner. Especially, especially if he had to top with them *cough*Arthur*cough* Like the Americans in Finland, he would be fine when he relaxed and things got going. But he’d have to relax first. That’s my thoughts on the matter anyway.

[rafaelsilvasource]

RAFAEL SILVA in New York | July 2023

[olympeline]

Ahem, USUK

[h-didanart]

It’s the lord!

Lovely

i did it again, i shoved my lab rat into another hyperfixation (as it has been requested many times and also to study the crk style lol)

tagging those who may be interested ,, @achickennamedcheese @h-didanart @sillyclowncircus ':3

[olympeline]

We live in a society. A society that needs a USUK superhero AU of this since yesterday.

Magician and gentleman thief Arthur gets sloppy one night and Superman-style All American Hero Alfred finds his hideout. Cue Alfred “saving” Arthur, then insisting on following the increasingly exasperated Englishman around. Trying to protect him in case his supervillain captor comes after him again. They get married

[olympeline]

FrUK?

FrUK 🇫🇷❤️🇬🇧

[olympeline]

Mmm yeah. I usually stay out of commenting on what other people do here but I have to admit, I’m kind of relieved someone else posted (confessed?) this.

I’m British and my dad’s side is English. Having to constantly read that the personification of our country is ugly/hideous/disgusting isn’t nice. It would be different if England actually was drawn to be ugly, or if the people posting it were English and laughing at themselves, but he’s not and they’re not.

“But it’s just a joke about a character-” Mm, a character who represents me and my home. And I don’t find it funny. I find it mean and uncomfortable like OP said. That’s all.

[h-didanart]

@thecoastxlwaters

Goth manta

aw hell yeah

goth manta goth manta goth manta goth manta goth manta

Link.

[olympeline]

USUK spend the night together. Order goes:

England

England

America

England

America

America

England

[olympeline]

I can just imagine USUK 😂

I don’t know whether Americans do the thing where you don’t wear a coat when going out drinking/clubbing in the winter because there’s never anywhere to leave the bastard thing. I hope they don’t because then I can imagine sensibly bundled up Alfred staring in stupified bewilderment when Arthur turns up for their date with a bare chest when there’s three feet of snow on the ground lmao

[olympeline]

You heard it here first

[h-didanart]

@coastxlwaters :D

fun facts about sharks

[olympeline]

[marvelsmostwanted]

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)