#prussiapostingposts

wilderness + instinct + intoxication + madness + any kind of loving you can handle! ...but not too much, might destroy yourself. know when to quit.

because rome just is an empire—and everyone wants him socratically, platonically, bloodily, aspirationally, carnally, biblically, or any combination thereof.

but china KNOWS a man like that, the emperor type, can't be contained or satisfied by just anyone. paterfamilias needs partners, rivals, concubines, heirs, protectorates, and exiles. china has been through this rodeo before; he's a courtier through and through.

whereas japan, birthplace of hetalia & its author, needed more time to widen/scratch up/change its lens when it comes to nation personification, geopolitics, history, and the internet. himaruya, much like the hetalia fandom + japan + the rest of the internet + rest of the world has MATURED.

there is a REASON that europe was elaborated on first in the canon, but those closer to japan region-wise such as ASEAN had to come much later. there's a reason south korea couldn't be in the anime back in the day. old-timey euro hetalia fans + NA/EU animanga fans in general will never understand the new characters totally because they are rebirths, iterations, reinventions of the core concept.

y'all just try to see more europe, more antiquity, in a japanese guy's multimedia franchise. but the author has grown: can more sensitively perceive and portray the closer neighbors now. whereas, newer fans might find the old material too profane, too far from their regional lens. and they'd be right.

hetalia is a multi-generational and truly international franchise. europeans + those with european heritage FEEL like they know it best because they "found it first," but that's only because himaruya was not yet ready to approach topics closer to his home back then.

so, the longer this goes on, the more "meta" and "genre fiction-aware" the hetalia franchise must get. historihet is just one branch on the tree of this series—one that fragments close neighbors and obscures faraway places.

that is the way the author keeps sanity: no death of the author, no death of the text, no death of the fandom. rebirth. change. adaptation. being passed onto other hands. a legacy.

IN CONCLUSION:

some of y'all still don't realize it, but we ARE *the*

anti-"great man history" history enjoyers

anti-"dehumanizing realpolitik" geopolitics metagamers

anti-"solipsistic projection/personification" country -> human || other matchmakers && mythmakers

all-age-appropriate, and yet anti-"offensive comedy" memers + jesters + game show hosts

re-inventors of any kind of genre fiction or multimedia from anywhere—because we know WHY regional stereotypes exist

we ARE a truly international fandom

AND we know how to fix or break or make something new from hetalia...

whether that be for our local audience of wherever we came from/live/work/study

or, the existing hetalia fans or haters

or, people who don't even know hetalia exists and have no interest in ever checking it out

we have TRANSCENDED the bad rumors about hetalia, especially the old fandom

not by blindly insisting hetalia is good

not by denying hetalia's shady past

but by ADAPTING to how the world, media, fiction, and internet has changed since we got started

AND SO DID HIMARUYA!

What did the sea ask of you?

(A little myth about seafaring + empires)

Everything the Mediterrane gave to Feliciano was given freely, as his grandpa had taught him how to treat her so as not to lose himself. He did not speak to her, but he did not need to. As Sadık had put it, the Mediterrane was a kind mistress—understanding of their ways.

However, it remained that the Europeans did not know how to speak to the open sea. They knew nothing but to sail along coasts, always in sight of the shore, and hope they did not catch her gaze. But when the time came that they desired exploration, expansion, empire far outside their borders, far outside Europe, this would no longer do.

Yet still, they could not speak to the sea. They did not know her language. And so, when they came to her, she was able to trick them into trading something away in return for command of the open waters.

Far before the others, she demanded of Mikkel and Lukas one memory, but it had to be what each considered his most precious. It was a lot less than what she usually asked for, but to make up for that, she warned them that they could never get those memories back. To this day, the both of them still don’t know what exactly they had given away, and they never would know whether it was worth it or not.

Of João and Abel, she demanded their immortality, while allowing them to release their grip on the sea at any time to gain it back. And, exactly as she had predicted, both of them did eventually have to forfeit the deal. Status as a sea power, and the profit of it, was simply no longer worth the risk of destruction. At some point, they had to choose to protect themselves.

Of Antonio, she demanded something he would not tell Arthur, even at swordpoint—though he warned Arthur not to take the deal, saying he regretted it. Later, the sea demanded of him exactly what she had of Antonio: his heart. And as we all know, Arthur took the deal.

The sea took his heart, and so took his gentleness, his nurturing spirit. For as long as he had his mighty global navy, he’d lost the ability to love. And without it, war and conquest became the whetstone that, over time, fashioned him into something ugly and jagged and ruthless.

But Arthur did not forfeit. The noxious pride that burned his lungs would not let him. In the end, he found himself lost over the Atlantic with nothing but a single plank of wood keeping his head above the water. In that moment, the sea took pity on him. “I had taken your heart, and the world is worse for it. Go home.” The next time he woke up, he found himself on British shores.

Centuries later, Arthur meets his erstwhile mistress for the first time in a long time, and he’s angry. He demands to know why he had to give up so much, while Alfred now gets to hold dominion over her waters the world over even as he remains as carefree as ever. “Why does he get to have the better bloody deal? Horribly unfair, is it not?”

The sea only scoffs, “He’s given me nothing! That boy is my enemy.” And that stops him in his tracks.

She wouldn’t tell him more than that, so Arthur has no choice but to go to Alfred to hear the other side of the story. What exactly had she demanded of him that was too steep a price to pay that he’d rather take her on as a perpetual opponent for as long as he insists on maintaining a global navy?

how i feel about this character

I'VE LOVED HIM SINCE 2012! i enjoy most shades of his characterizations whether that's as the perverted comic relief, the over-the-top suave bisexual, the napoleonic era capital J Jerk™, and the modern day EU girlboss. he is just such an enjoyable character.

all the people i ship romantically with this character

oh my god there are a lot. arthur, of course. back in 2012 i didn't even care about gerita but i loved fruk with my whole heart lol. longtime rivals with benefits my beloved <3

i also love francis with ludwig. their dynamic as EU work husbands is... i don't wanna say underrated, but it definitely still has a lot of untapped potential. i mean, come on. france tied their and germany's economies together so intimately and with the rest of the EU + stubbornly volunteered and upheld itself as the primary military power of this alliance so that g.ermany could never surprise them again. darling, please focus on your cars and electronics and never pick up a gun again. i will protect myself from you by being the one to defend you from any threat. and ludwig with his luxury cars and electronics and having not stepped on a military base for years now is like thank you, this is nice actually :). francis domesticated him. lol. lmao, even.

then there's prufra. they absolutely, 100%, had a fiery passionate fling throughout most of the 18th century that ultimately ended in one last emotional hate-fuck after the battle of jena-auerstedt I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL. one day i will fully write out that ridiculous fic i have in my drafts that parallels gilbert and francis with frederick the great and voltaire and then you'll all see.

and finally, where the fuck would i be in my life without frus. guns and roses. they are the ultimate romcom couple with endless culture clashes, disastrous dates, and earnest but horrible gifts given (mostly from alfred). with their personalities, a romance novel practically writes itself! francis, who has a wealth of relationship experience and is concerned with the romantic and the sensual and the delicacies of intimacy, falling for the macho, socially blunt and clumsy alfred who thinks relationships can be studied and optimized like ballistics.

i have more ships (like frain and franada) because francis is an endlessly shippable character, but those above are my main ones.

my non-romantic OTP for this character

kiku!!! love love love all those doujins and comics where francis is a big weeb and he and kiku bond over that. they have sleepovers where they watch hentai and critique it like high art. kiku shows him comics with shibari and tentacles and francis is like ah yes they were clearly influenced by marquis de sade. i also like francis, kiku, and alfred together as a platonic trio.

my unpopular opinion about this character

there is not enough portrayals of him as a serious colonizing and imperialist asshole. napoleonic era france especially in my opinion gets off way too easy in this fandom. give him the arthur and alfred treatment; he deserves it.

one thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

How I Sold My Soul to the Money Men

nyo philippines but she's a sweet middle-aged woman who speaks in this almost song-like way and runs a canteen. when you see her cooking in the afternoon light, you'd swear she had a halo. she's been running the place on and off for decades and tired kids from every generation have eaten there to heal.

alfred with fully 19yo energy spending time outside the base for once to stuff his face: i had no idea the food here was so good!