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jamtland · 6 months

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What is your opinion on SuFin from a Swedish perspective?

Thanks for asking! From a historical and cultural perspective, SuFin is a ship that makes a lot of sense. Sweden and Finland were the same country for almost 700 years (that's only counting recorded history), and out of the Nordics, Sweden and Finland share the most traditions. I encourage everyone to read this post by Nordickies, which explains in detail the interconnectedness between Sweden and Finland through history, and how it could have affected Björn and Timo's relationship.

From my perspective, I used to dislike SuFin a lot because of how it's often written with this "stereotypical straight couple" relationship. Sweden and Finland's characters were always forced into these roles and the historical background of their countries was always brushed aside because it contradicted the forced wholesome dynamic. My opinion on SuFin was changed by the works of Haranonaka (who unfortunately removed all of their Hetalia works from their social media accounts in June 2023, and I only have a few individual images saved). Haranonaka redesigned Finland to be a confident and muscular character, and made many beautiful comics based on the history and conflicts between Sweden, Finland and Russia.

My design and characterization of Timo is strongly based on Haranonaka's Finland, although I made him less outgoing and smiley because I like the idea of Timo being a stoic person with a warm heart who rarely opens up to others. When I write about Timo, I'm thinking about this guy. (Björn for scale.)

My interpretation of SuFin aligns with Nordickies' analysis, with some changes to match my Nationverse. Geographically, Timo was living the closest to Björn out of the Nordic 5. As a child, Timo was physically weak and emotionally sensitive, which led to him getting bullied by Björn. Björn eventually stopped bullying him when they matured and Timo hardened his sensitive side, but they weren't close during the period of Swedish rule and earlier. Timo had an idealistic worldview as a child, so he wasn't too concerned when his land became Swedish territory. He noticed the lower status of the Finnish language and banning of Finnish pagan traditions under Swedish rule, but at that point, he had become so used to Swedish rulers that he didn't think it was out of the ordinary. His worldview was shaken when Finland was surrendered to Russia and granted autonomy, which made him eager to adopt a Finnish national identity. During this time, he felt a lot of irrational anger towards Björn even though he knew that Björn wasn't personally responsible for Swedish-Finnish relations. Björn was ashamed of bullying Timo and wanted to repair their relationship, so when Timo was serving in the Finnish army during the Finnish independence and continuation wars, Björn would secretly travel to Finland to give him and his fellow soldiers military aid. At first, Timo didn't want to have any contact with Björn, but after he realized how much money and risk Björn was taking to help him, he softened his attitude. Over the years after the war, they slowly opened up to each other. It wasn't smooth-sailing at all as their stubborn personalities led to a lot of arguments, but they learned to cooperate with each other and realized how much they have in common.

My SuFin is the opposite of the standard fandom version, because they're a couple with a lot of historical baggage caused by an unequal power dynamic. Not to mention the drastic language difference between them too. It's much more interesting to me that Björn and Timo started off with a broken relationship and have to put in work and sacrifice to fix it. The personification of Åland is their child, which was also a source of conflict in their relationship!

#ask #hetalia #sufin #hws sweden #hws finland #long post #the more you know #Åland and personifications of regions with historical Swedish and Finnish influence are my only candidates for SuFin's children #I do not acknowledge options that have no real-life relation to both countries ;)

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bromcommie · 3 months

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Sokovia falls in spring.

Much of it is blurry now, forced into oblivion, but he remembers that part with vicious detail - the unassuming, forgettable prelude to hell; Lazarus Saturday, the intermittent tinkling of bells down their cul-de-sac and the heavy wet air while he sat out on the wide expanse of the balcony, sipping on his lukewarm coffee and sneaking a rare indulgent cigarette while the house was empty. It'd done little to ward against the chill of the morning, the kind of cold that broke him out into consistent goosebumps and seeped down into his bones, seemingly misplaced in early April. The metal railing stuck to the warm skin of his forearms when he leaned over it to peer idly down at the street, to where snow had accumulated in front of the row of brand-new luxury apartment buildings; all alike in their appearance, all that same shiny glass and metal and blinding white that had become popular in the last fifteen years, fifteen years too late in regards to the rest of the world, and that would fall apart in about as many. All laid out like a poor man's idea of opulence and a stark contrast to the unkempt street.

He'd hated it initially - hates it still, really. The cheap sterility of it, this sign of the times made palpable infrastructure that was devouring what was left of a once beautiful neighborhood, clashing with the old, dilapidated villas and steadfastly grey communist architecture. But Sandra had said, it's a peaceful neighborhood. There's a good school nearby. Sandra had said, There's a life for us here, love, and it'll be a good change of pace. Look how beautiful the view is from up here. Sandra had said: just because you grew up in exile doesn't mean Miho should.

And she was right. So a pristine-white, new-century-cold castle on the hill it was. He could still fit his dream of a future in Sokovia into a different shape, he told himself; what mattered was what was inside, anyway.

He'd watched as a gaggle of children slipped and skittered their way downhill from the international school, kicking the stray willow wreaths that had slipped off the heads of previous passersby back and forth until they'd get stuck in the muddy slush, and found himself wishing again that he'd gone with his wife and son to visit her mother in Kralyev Pole. But he was scheduled to go back to Vienna in the morning - it was a familiar rhythm by now - and Sandra had just pressed a firm kiss to his cheek and said we'll see you back home at Easter in a purposeful, loving tone that almost got lost between the distracted flurry of packing and her distant eyes.

Looking down at the murky palette of the street below he'd wished, not for the first time, that it'd all felt a little more like home. That he wasn't itching to be back on that plane out of the country the second he landed, a feeling amped up to 11 the second his family had set foot outside the building.

But then again, Novi Grad had never been his home; not really, not in any way that mattered.

He'd been in a foul mood already when his father called, the glaring absence of sound from the open double doors behind him and the grey sky pressing down over his head like a steel trap setting his teeth on edge. He'd let the phone ring and ring for almost a full minute before guilt had finally, inevitably, won over.

Their conversation had been relatively brief, caught between perfunctory and utilitarian, much like all of their other phone conversations since he'd started splitting his time between Sokovia and work abroad. They talked about the unexpected snow, about what is to be done for the anniversary of his mother's death, about whether Mihailo would like a BMX sports bicycle for his birthday. He'd tried explaining that his son still didn't really know how to ride one well - that at eight, the five-speed he already had was perfectly fine, thank you, but it's a nice thought. His father had just scoffed.

"You were never athletic as a child either, you know. Never climbed trees with the other children. Always too afraid of falling, I suppose," he'd said mostly to himself, and then, "If the kid actually had someone around to teach him, maybe he'd be learning faster."

On a different day, he might've let it slide. On a different day, he wouldn't have let the sentimental old age in his father's voice feel like a personal affront. "Nobody ever taught me, and I learned just fine."

This wasn't necessarily true. For most of his young life, Zemo had been coached by a wide plethora of professionals: French, German, Latin, shooting, violin, tennis, horseback riding, mountaineering, art, diplomacy, you name it - he'd had a teacher for every single one of the skills his parents and his surroundings had deemed necessary for a young man of his stature, and eventually, with more or less effort, he'd excelled at all of them; but never alone. There'd been Katya, the au pair that practically raised him in his childhood, young herself and lost in a foreign country and still the warmest presence he'd had in his life. There'd been Oeznik, who'd governed him with a much stricter hand than his own parents, but who had guarded Zemo's life with his own nonetheless.

It's just that things like big-game hunting and history lessons took precedence over things like bike riding and soccer, which was just as well, really. He never liked being mundane.

At the Academy it was a different story altogether. Unnoticeability, the skill of being no more interesting than the person next to him, only came later, and at a cost.

"Just make sure your Germans let you out in time for Easter," the old man'd muttered, "if they even recognize that sort of thing."

He remembers that part clearly, too, that bitter emphasis: your Germans. Like Zemo'd picked the wrong thing to do with his abundant time and money, the wrong way to employ his very specialized skill set, the wrong side of the family to lean into; like his name and heritage were something he'd picked himself and not something that was hammered into him by way of memorization, that he was taught to take pride in and embody down to the last detail. Like this mild-mannered, West-oriented young man who spoke German and a handful of other languages softly but deftly, who subsumed all his wilder impulses and hid his smoking and all his other dirty habits from his family and from the world behind a courteous smile wasn't an inadvertent yet nonetheless direct creation of the man on the other end of the line. A prince and a baron, turned a lowly gastarbeiter.

"They're Austrian," Zemo'd said simply. "Look, I have to go - Sandra and the kid just came in. I'll talk to you later."

It's not the last conversation he had with his father, but it's the last one he rememebers. Subtle judgement, the smell of smoke and cold and stale Turkish coffee and all those little clear bells, ringing, ringing, ringing: Lazarus rising, just to fall a week later.

Novi Grad falls on his son's birthday, the 11th of April, the day before Easter. It takes everything else down with it.

This was not the first time Novi Grad had fallen. Historically, this wasn't even the first time it’d suffered this extent of loss of life. But it was the first time the ruins were cauterized before something could grow from in between them like weeds out the sidewalk. It was the first time that what was lost was acknowledged as such: dead, gone, our condolences for your loss. Nothing more to be done.

There’d been excuses, of course, and platitudes spoken by the feeble remaining government, echoes of the UN and NATO and the EU he'd learned to recognize as empty long before he started working in security consulting:

We empathize greatly with all Sokovian nationals in this trying time. We’re doing everything in our power to stabilize the situation. We’re doing everything we can to never let a catastrophe like this happen again. It’ll just take a few weeks, a month, a year or two or five to rebuild, but patience is of the essence here.

We’re all very horrified, you understand. There aren’t enough resources for everyone, you see. It’s a very complicated situation, there’s no one answer here – now’s not the time to be pointing fingers. But we’re doing everything we can. We’re sure it’ll be enough.

Daće Bog. That’s what his mother used to say – like a vague handwave to ward off all the legitimate fear and anxiety before it can ever take root in her body, in her home. If she saw even a glimpse of it in her son’s face she’d take it as a clear sign that she had personally failed somehow, which would, exacerbated by alcohol and pent-up emotion, upset and anger her more than the original problem itself. Zemo'd learned how to bury and snuff out these embers of fear very quickly.

There's talk of persecution of royalist dissidents abroad - God will protect us from the infidels, you'll see. The regime changes and the country plunges into economic crisis - so what, it'll pass, God willing, and then we'll be able to return. Yet another war breaks out, nothing but a parasitic twin to the last, devouring the country from the inside out and draining off fresh blood – well, it's nothing new. it'll be alright, God willing we'll get the bastards before they get us. Crkli dabogda.

And he’d just nod his little head and allow, very neutral, very acquiescing for the tender age of nine, thirteen, sixteen - sure, of course, it'll all be fine. Much later, he'd adjust the poorly-fitted camouflage greens that would squeeze too tight around his neck and say in that same steady tone of voice into the payphone receiver, Don't worry, mama, don't worry, it'll be taken care of. Daće Bog.

That’s all she’d ever say on the topic, or any topic really. God save us, God willing, God will provide – that was her eternal refrain. Well that and, just you wait until your father gets home, if she'd perceived him to be acting up somehow - more often than not by virtue of sheer existence alone.

This was, of course, yet another half-truth - his father never really took to beating him. There were always bigger things to worry about, things that belonged to the grander picture - too wide for him to fit into as an important variable and just manageable enough to squeeze into his young body like a manifestation of a future his father was pouring all his hope and dreams into.

Either way, the fear was there. The fear of disappointing, of coming up short to the ideal of what a son should be; it was all it took to keep him in line. Father, God – they became two sides of the same coin, the same promise of impending judgement. Both instilled far more trepidation in him than comfort.

It’s only when the bulldozer finally digs up what remains of their old country estate and he can pull his father’s unrecognizable, mangled body into his lap – so small and frail, when did his father get to be so small and frail? – that he thinks: what was I so afraid of all those years?

*** Excerpt from my Zemo character study - turned out to be much longer than a snippet, but I got carried away. Still very much a WIP, but thought I might as well post it until I figure out where I want to go with it.

Translations: Daće bog - God will provide, God willing Crkli dabogda - may they all die, God willing gastarbeiter - (German) foreign or migrant worker

#VERY MUCH A WIP. jesus christ #i know zemo's wife and kid technically have german names in mcu canon but I've decided to ignore this #sokovian language and history heavily yet loosely based on yugoslavia with some mixing with other regional influences. to be developed #anyway! this needs so much work fml but the general idea's there.#helmut zemo #helmut zemo fic #my fic #ficlet

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