Day 6: Hyvää Itsenäisyyspäivää💙🕯️🕯️ Happy Independence day💙🕯️🕯️

On independence day I want to light my candles to freedom, to those who fought for our freedom, for those who have gone, and those who are still here. I light my candles for our own language and our culture. For the world to see we are free.

two weeks until the winter solstice or second blue moon epoch, first autumn is winding down

Gonna build a wall, and it's gonna be a great wall, and gonna make Putin pay for it!!

Hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää

I'm pretty sure I've made a post about this exact specific thing before, but I'm going to type this out anyway, because I can't get over how Tove Jansson's work depicts masculinity, and the idea of gender in general.

While she was - and still 100% is - absolutely a wlw icon (being the first woman to bring a same-sex date to Finland's annual independence day ball in the Presidental Palace), and her work doesn't focus on men or masculinity, she had no resentment towards the male sex as a whole. In her works, the male characters are mainly amusing creatures, up to their silly masculine antics that men are bound to do just the same as squirrels are bound to build their certain type of nests and migratory birds are bound to fly to the south for winter.

There are characters - whole species, in fact - that more or less represent people trying to perform their respective gender roles, like the Fillyjonk who manages to be a strictly normative Housewife without any mention of her having a husband, and the masculine counterpart of generally male hemulens. While there are both fillyjonks and hemulens that are happy being Traditionally Feminine and Traditionally Masculine, there's one short story of a fillyjonk who doesn't enjoy micro-managing an immaculate household, and another one of a hemulen who doesn't enjoy any traditionally masculine hobbies but tries to arbitrarily pick one anyway, because of societal expectations to have one.

But the thing is, the characters who don't fit into standard strict gender presentations are perfectly comfortable with themselves and neither they nor anyone else really gives a shit. Jansson was born in 1914, and it's remarkable how neutral the characters' depictions are to a modern eye. Being personally finnish and introduced to her works in a language that doesn't have gendered pronouns, I literally did not know what gender a few of the characters were before encountering their english or swedish descriptions with pronouns. And I never wondered whether they're supposed to be male or female. Hell, even the character representing the love of her life is depicted like this, and it never crossed my mind to wonder whether Too-Ticky is male or female. She's just Too-Ticky, who dispels wisdom.

But coming back to masculinity, the way Jansson depicts male characters and The Masculine Urge To Do Shit isn't depicted as either superior nor inferior to her female characters' ways of doing their own thing. Sure, men cause problems on purpose from time to time, but the narrative doesn't depict this as inherently bad any more than it is inherently good. The protagonist Moomintroll is a boy and does his best to perform some ideal of being manly, but it's depicted as a part of him trying to grow up. His father's misadventures in trying to be either a wildhearted Manly Adventurer or a Stable Provider For His Family - and the conflict between these two ideals - aren't depicted as bad things to want, or something he shouldn't want, but just an inherent part of being a man.

The protagonist's girlfriend Snorkmaiden is depicted as vain and frivolous as much as she is kind and loving, but her girlish silliness and genuinely kind heart aren't depicted as being contradictory to each other, it's just who she is as a person. The protagonist's mother, Moominmamma, is the platonic ideal of a loving and patient mother and wife, and The moomins' TvTropes page actually goes as far as describing her as fitting the definition of the platonic ideal of the perfect traditional japanese woman, being gentle, loving and hospitable, but strong and unhesitant to protect her family. She doesn't humour her husband's whims out of some schooled and practiced dedication to the role of feminine submissiveness, she puts up with his stupid shit because she loves him.

Tove Jansson was a splendid woman and her work and art are rightfully one of Finland's proudest gifts to the world, and whether she was gay or bisexual, it clearly shines through her work how as much as she loved women, she didn't dislike men. The Masculine Urge To Do Shit is aknowledged with a jovial shrug: "Yeah, they do that sometimes."

Hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää!

Happy (Finnish) Indepence Day! Since today is mostly marked by the president shaking hands with every guest of their Independence Day reception, I thought this would be a fine time to introduce some of our past Presidential coaches. Today we have none, but until the 2000s we operated a carriage specifically designed for the use of the President of the Republic.

The president's coach was always the A1. Here is the 19XX-built A1, photographed in 1973 by the time it had already been replaced by a new A1 in 1970 and had been demoted to A30. Originally, first-class carriages were painted blue, but by this time the colour only survived in special carriages, with all regular passenger coaches painted brown. Photo by Tapio Keränen, vaunut.org

The 1970-built A1 was built specifically with President Urho Kekkonen in mind, as he was a keen train traveler. The coach was based on the blue carriages, with bedrooms, a kitchen and a meeting room. It was painted in the special livery seen here, which was exclusive to this carriage. With the delivery of the new A1 in 1992, this one was rebuilt into a "President Class" sleeper and eventually scrapped in 2001 due to being so badly vandalized in the interim that preservation was deemed impossible. Photo by Pekka Viitamäki, vaunut.org

The to-date last A1 (seen here with the "sister carriage" A2 for the Cabinet) was built in 1992, during the presidency of Mauno Koivisto. This A1 and A2 were a fascinating hybrid of single-decker Intercity coaches and the blue carriages in terms of design. It was occasionally used by Koivisto and his successsors Martti Ahtisaari and Tarja Halonen, but eventually retired in the mid-00s. Photo by Eljas Pölhö, vaunut.org

yeah I'll reblog the memes for independence day but make no mistake, i unironically believe that finland is a shit country. especially as of late. not even getting to the rise of right-wing politics in the past few years, but just in general as someone who's not white and who's non-binary.

If you're anything else than a white able bodied allo cishet male, this country hates you. White male celebs who routinely sexually harass people constantly on TV, with no punishment in sight for their actions, their victims blamed by the public; one of the highest percentage of people to victim blame victims of sexual harasment.

Forever seen as an intruder if you're not white, whether you were born here or not - and even if you weren't, that doesn't make you an intruder. One of the most racist European countries. Romani and Sami people are treated like shit and it's completely socially acceptable to spout racist bullshit about both of those people. Rampant cultural appropriation, especially to Karelian people, who's culture I constantly see on tumblr too stolen by non-Karelian finns.

Trans healthcare literally one of the most inaccessible in western countries, constantly listed among worst in Europe. Being non-binary instantly lowers your chances to get care. So does being autistic. Years of waiting just to know if you'll be denied or not getting gender affirming care.

I wish I could say that I believe we can be better.

Anyway, happy independence day🇫🇮

Some stuff:

Suomi koetaan yhdeksi rasistisimmista maista (In Finnish)

Study: being black in EU (In English)

Amnesty: Finland's structural racism (In English)

Finland's appropriation of Sami culture (In English)

Study: Finland and appropriation of Karelian culture* (In English)

Karelian activist Häkki Maura on cultural appropriation (In Finnish)

Kehrääjä: abuse in trans healthcare towards kids (In Finnish)

An Instagram account publishing anonymous experiences with trans healthcare (In Finnish)

Study: Intersection of race and transness (In English)

(For the sexual harasment I just urge people to do their own googling on Aku Hirviniemi, Roope Salminen, Sami Hedberg and the subject in general)

This stuff is easily googleable, so do your own research. This is just some stuff to get you started and to remember.

*I haven't read this entire study (yet).

Happy Independence Day Finland!

Finnish sentry from the Infantry Regiment 7 (Regiment of Tyrjä) at the Ohta sector, December 6, 1942.

We are proudly conscious of the historic duty which we shall continue to fulfil; the defence of that Western civilisation which has been our heritage for centuries.

Commander-in-Chief’s Order of the Day No. 34 •••••••• Hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää Suomi!

Jalkaväkirykmentti 7:n (Tyrjän Rykmentti) vartiomies Ohdan lohkolla itsenäisyyspäivänä, 6.12.1942.

Meillä on ylpeä tietoisuus siitä, että meillä on historiallinen tehtävä, jonka me edelleen täytämme; länsimaisen sivistyksen suojaaminen, joka vuosisatoja on ollut meidän perintömme.

Ylipäällikön päiväkäsky N:o 34 •••••••• [ sa-kuva | 116408 | J.Taube ]

Do you have any favorite Finnish sayings or proverbs?

this is such a cute ask!!

finnish proverbs are pretty depressing (don't stand out, don't be too happy, don't aim too high and so on), so I'm gonna do some words and sayings instead!

first, let's establish some context for the uninitiated.

finnish is a finnic language belonging to the uralic language family. it's therefore not related to any of the major european languages, though there has been a strong swedish, baltic and russian influence in vocabulary due to centuries of swedish and russian rule. according to current research, uralic languages originated in southern or western siberia. today most uralic languages are minority languages, many of them endangered. only finnish, estonian and hungarian have full sovereignty. finland gained independence from russia in 1917. in finnish both the country and the language are called suomi.

it's spring (supposedly, we are still experiencing some arctic vibes over here), so here are a couple of things you can say when encountering certain nature's creatures! when you meet a slug: etana, etana, näytä sarves, onko huomenna pouta (slug, slug, show your tentacles, will tomorrow be a clear day). pouta is a word that means clear weather. if the slug shows its tentacles, tomorrow's gonna be a clear day. otherwise it will rain. when you meet a ladybug: lennä, lennä leppäkerttu ison kiven juureen, siellä isäs äitis keittää sulle puuroo (fly, fly ladybug to the foot of a large rock, there your dad your mom will cook porridge for you). say this to a ladybug while holding it to the air to see it off! speaking of spring, we actually have more than four seasons. they are: talvi (winter) kevättalvi (winter spring) kevät (spring) kevätkesä (spring summer) kesä (summer) syyskesä (autumn summer) syksy (autumn) syystalvi (autumn winter) here are some words specific to finnish! I hate how kalsarikännnit (being drunk at home in your underwear) always makes these lists, fuck that word and that stereotype. if I hear someone is having a kalsarikännit, I feel concerned for them, not inspired.

tarjeta: to not feel cold. this is such an essential verb in finland! roikootella: to not wear enough clothes for the weather. this actually a word in my dialect but i wish it was used by everyone because it's so useful. the tone is negative but not slut shaming. here is a conversation in my dialect using both of the aforementioned words: person 1: meinaakko nuav vaa iliman takkia roikootella? (are you going to roikootella like that without a coat?) person 2: kyllä tuala tarkenoo. (the weather out there is not cold enough for me to feel cold in this clothing.)

sää, ilma, keli: these all mean the weather but have different connotations and uses

vilu: the feeling of being cold vilukissa: 'vilu cat', a person who is always cold halla: subzero degrees at night in the summer helle: heat of over 25 celsius degrees. one of the worst words coined by the media was seksihelle (sex helle) some ten years ago. no one does weather reporting like finnish tabloids.

kuura: frost you can see on the ground and on surfaces in autumn

routa: frost deep in the ground. routa takes longer to melt than snow so the air remains chilly even when the temperatures start to rise.

tuulenpesä: I think this is called a witch's broom in english and most other european languages, but we call them tuulenpesä, the wind's nest. it's where the wind lives!

lintukoto: literally 'bird home'. in finnish folklore, lintukoto was a place at the end of the world where birds migrated for the winter. lintukoto was populated by very small people and everything there was tiny. nowadays it refers to a place that's safe and peaceful, most often in the discourse of whether or not finland is a lintukoto.

linnunrata: literally 'bird's route', this is the finnish word for the milky way because in folklore swans would follow it to navigate themselves to lintukoto. swans were considered the holy ancestors of humans that could travel between worlds. the common swan is the national bird of finland. even today, the word for swan comes from the same root in most finno-ugric languages, meaning it has been beloved to these cultures for a very long time! it's joutsen in finnish, njukča in northern saami, juś in udmurt, etc!

ähky: the feeling of having eaten or consumed something too much. can also be figurative. ending with this because I just ate too many potato chips and have a sipsiähky now!

What are your elmer thoughts

I don't know, Sister, but it's bound to rain sooner or later!" is legit the funniest line in the play but he doesn't say it in a wise-ass way. I think of Elmer as a happy-go-lucky person who takes life as it comes. He is not as dumb as his friends think he is; for example, he lives at home with his big, loving immigrant family, but knows better than to mention this much. His skin is pretty thick, thanks to all of the actual older brothers and sisters, and he will always be the baby of the newses.

Elmer is agreeable and respectful, but has an unexpected independent streak. Girls like him; he is oblivious. He comes and goes as he pleases and does other jobs sometimes, including helping out his mom with piecework at home. He needs a lot of supervision/structure; when he's selling papes, he doesn't do that well because he's just not motivated by money.

Two unpopular opinions: I don't believe in Elmer the math whiz. And I don't believe in Polish Elmer. I like to think of him as Finnish, born Hjalmar, a Lutheran. This would explain why he is respectful to the nuns, but doesn't want to go to Mass.

If he IS Polish, maybe he is a Polish Jew like David. I do also stan Filipino Elmer, though. In short, Elmer is a cutie and I love him, the end!

Man, two asks in 2 days! What is going on?

May I hear more about your Fem! Finland? She sounds interesting, and I also portray my Finland as a woman 👀

Sure you can! ✨ I’m sooo happy to hear you’re interested in my silly little OC portrayals. And also especially relieved to hear you also see finny as a woman, I always get nervous talking about it due to some sexist comments I received last year for preferring female fin.

I won’t get into that!

Anyway, since I wrote so little about them last time, I thought I’d give you a list of my headcanons for Aino. Free to steal if you’d like, and if you have any headcanons for fem! Fin I encourage you to send me them. 😌✨🇫🇮.

Aino is an animal lover through and through, she loves all animals and is pretty knowledgable on most animal species that live in her country. She has a huge admiration and respect for bears especially. However, her favourites are by far birds. She’s such a bird nerd, she owns many books on them, she loves bird watching, and she actually makes and puts up bird houses in her garden every spring time.

She has a Finnish lapphund as a pet. She’s white, and her name is “lumi”, which means snow in Finnish.

They’re a bit of an old soul, in a sense. They older “old” people hobbies, like fishing, knitting and long walks. Aikkuli finds she needs slower moments in life to wind down and appreciate some of the simpler things.

However, they need to have their fast paced hobbies too, the things that make them feel alive. They’re a huge fan of ice hockey, but they also love rally driving, and can actually ride a motorcycle.

Speaking of rally, Aino loves cars! They’re so fascinated by them, they’re the type to ask someone 10 million different questions about what type of car they drive, they find it interesting

She adores moomin! Has a whole collection of moomin mugs. The animated series from the 90s is her comfort show, and they’re constantly relating things happening in real life to something that happened in either the moomin books, or in the show.

Aikkuli really enjoys skiing, and due to their competitive nature, they get upset when left out of “who’s the best nordic at skiing” debates, even though objectively, they’re not as good at Sweden, and especially not as good as Norway.

Whilst they can’t see creatures, Aino is still quite interested in her old pagan beliefs, and owns a Kalevala, and other books about old Finnish mythology. In modern day, they’re not entirely sure what their religion is, but they also don’t often sit down and actually ponder it.

Their secret talent is that they know how to dance! They’re quite good at ballroom type stuff, but their skills don’t really translate to other forms. She’s a little embarrassed by this, and doesn’t like to tell or show people that often.

Whilst Aino is a very independent woman, who’s not super lenient on anyone, they can be really clingy with Estonia. Often choosing to hang around with Eesti as often and they possibly can. Sometimes it may feel like it’s a bit much, but truth be told? Estonia sometimes feels like their only genuinely close friend they can undoubtably trust.

Fin easily lets their competitive nature get the better of her, and it’s not uncommon for her to take it too far. Especially if Sweden is involved. Be cautious to play anything against both Sweden and Finland. If Aikkuli wins, they will not stop bragging and rubbing it in sve’s face for the rest of the week, and if they lose they can sometimes became extremely resentful. The atmosphere will be cold for a while afterwards.

Aikkuli lives for heavy metal music, they probably listen to some songs from other genres too, but is absolutely a metal head first and foremost. She goes to heavy metal gigs and concerts as often as they can. And they definitely blast their music as loud as they want when they’re in their car.

Ahh! There we go! Sorry this took a while to respond to, I don’t really touch Aino all that much so it can be hard for me to just list things about them on the spot. I have sooo many thoughts about them, but I always struggle to type them out. I partially blame the hiatus I took from her character, it feels like I’m tugging hard to get her off the shelf, but they don’t wanna move 😅😅

🇫🇮Happy Finnish Independence day for all my fellow countryfolks! 🇫🇮

Although it's still technically a night's sleep away but uh. It's past midnight already.

This year we should all celebrate some of our most relevant strengths:

Our willpower, our resilience. And of course, dark situational humor.

The best place to be, the only one I've known and likely the only place I could ever call home.

🤍💙🇫🇮Happy Independence day!🇫🇮💙🤍

What about you? What writing are you happy about this year?? Is there anything you want to brag about?

Happy Yule, solstice, Christmas, Festivus, (belated) Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Doctor Who Day! And anything else you might celebrate, or happy Monday if you don’t!

Thank you so so much for asking 🧡🧡

This was quite a writing year for me. I wrote only four stories, but I'm quite proud of all of them. To Love Somebody was my first foray in rare pairs. An angsty backstory for Shadwell, and what made him the way he is. It has an hopeful ending, and I'm quite proud of the structure, and how much I managed to squeeze into the small word count. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is a short and wholesome outsider pov story I wrote for an event. I was surprised how much people liked it! It was also my first attempt on present tense, which continued in A Stable Relationship, one of my FTH stories for this year (the second one will probably be a bit late, and be completed in January). I had fun writing it, and it turned out to be a good one, and the only one of these oneshots that was Explicit. It was set in horse riding world.

The reason why I wrote only three oneshots, and why my second FTH piece is late, was of course my favourite story of all time: Be Still My Soul trilogy. A human AU story set in the sad moments of Finnish history.

Despite the class differences, landowner Azirafel Fjäll and sawmill worker Anton Crowley have been friends since childhood. The Great War rages over Europe and the Empire of Russia is in the firm grip of a revolution. The echoes of these fateful events carry over to the Grand Duchy of Finland, vaguely sauntering towards independence. Azirafel and Crowley find themselves on the opposite sides of a conflict that will eventually lead to a bitter civil war, tearing the country apart.

Is there a possibility for them to find their own side, or will this be the end of their budding love story?

I started writing the third part in January, and finished it just before S2 aired in July. It finished posting in October, and it's now complete and done, though I'm still commissioning art for it. This story took over my life for over two years, and it's my baby. I've had such a hard time to let go of it! It also has its own blog @be-still-my-soul-fanfic where I posted dozens of posts about historical and cultural facts. The story is written in a way you don't need to know anything of the Finnish history beforehand (my American betas made sure of that). It's a lovestory, not a history lesson, BUT if you want to learn more, there's a lot of extra info available 😅

I think it's the best story I've ever written (and probably ever will). Many readers have agreed, but it's angsty with very heavy themes until the happy ending, so it's not for everyone and I think posting it just when S2 aired cut some of the potential readers. The third part of the trilogy is now five kudos shy of 100 kudos, and I'm hoping it could get past that milestone before new years. 😂 So yeah, my own personal favourite gets the least interaction of them all. Oh well.

I'm gonna sound a bit self-absorbed, but I'm proud I finished it and it turned out even better than I hoped. My dream would be to print a physical copy or to record a podfic of that, but both might be a bit too much work.

For the next year I have two zine fics to finish, and I have applied to a third one. I have one event fic in the works as well, but the FTH story will be the one I'll concentrate until it's done. It's an oneshot human AU which somehow grew limbs and now it's 7.6k words and nowhere near done 😱 That's my holiday project.

Thank you for asking!! I was so delighted to get a chance to ramble myself 🧡 There's never enough chances for writers to gush about their own work because it always feels a bit self centered. That's why I like to wander around Tumblr and give people the perfect excuse to do that! Peek at the #writer's favourites tag if you want to see other fanfic writers sharing their favourites! And feel free to use the tag yourself if I forgot to ask someone (I was very much not organised when going through the blogs and I'm not good at matching blog names with writer names 😅)

I hope you'll have a magnificent new year 🧡

🇫🇮 For the first time, let us say "Happy Independence Day to our Finnish friends and colleagues" 🇫🇮

@NATO_AIRCOM via X

Happy independence day Finland!

December the 6th 1917 Finland declared it's independence from the Russian Empire.

Before that Finland had been an autonomous republic of Russia since the end of the Finnish War in 1809

Before that the area that now is Finland was the eastern half of Sweden for about 700 years.

Now we are all the way back in the 1200's. Before that time in Scandinavia there was no nations or kingdoms and the further back we go from there the more the history is shrouded in mystery.

Ohhh you love christmas too!!! What kind of traditions are finnish christmas traditions, how do you like to spend christmas there? ^___^

I will go to my mother's place to spent Christmas with her and my sister. In the morning there are a few cartoons me and my sister wish to see. One is Santa Claus and The Magic Drum which you can watch with English subtitles here for free. Lots of Finnish traditions but also Samis!

We gather all the presents around our Christmas tree (always a real one) to lift up the mood. We eat Christmas porridge with cinnamon and sugar in the morning. The ham has been cooked over night and is also ready to be eaten. As we're happy just with the ham and porridge, we have no other Christmas foods than it and porridge. We do have tangerines and lots of chocolate, though!

Around late afternoon, our brother living abroad joins through online meeting and spends the evening with us. Around 7pm, the sauna is ready. After everyone has bathed, we open the presents. Brother joins this through his computer and opens the presents we got him. After that we usually play some games and chat with him.

Now, Finnish Christmas is very quiet, melancholic and sad. You’re supposed to remember the deceased loved ones and remember them, thinking how someday you are also dead (and perhaps your kids will mourn you like you mourn your dead parents). You can rest and relax for a few days but don’t forget that it will soon be over. You also need to visit cemeteries and bring candles for your dead loved ones.

I think what might contribute to this melancholic and horror filled Christmas mood is that we got independence near WW1 in 1917 in December and also WW2’s Winter War was fought during Christmas time. We, as a nation, spent two major Christmas times mourning the ones who were killed, captured or lost in the war, our and lands homes included. Plus we’ve been oppressed as a nation, and people since 9th century till 1917.

Life is tough. Life is hell. Life is agony and pain. But, at least for now it’s Christmas for a few days and we can breathe and have a bit of joy. The torment is right behind the corner, though. Majority of our Christmas songs are like this and sound more mourning songs than Christmas songs. There’s a spark of hope in the darkness, though.

The overly sparkly and joyous lovey-dovey Christmas is not a thing here. While I love fairy lights and all Christmas cuteness, the Christmas mood for me is quiet, soft, still and melancholic, with the undertone of death and misery.

If you hate overly energetic Christmas songs, you may listen to Jouluradio online radio, which plays quiet and melancholic Finnish Christmas songs 24/7.