rpanons | You're all idiots except for me

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thank you! there are a few different people i like to rp, the nordic family -denmark, sealand. i like to play korea and belarus as well but the comic by itself is kind of 'eh..." wince inducing with how he is presented so i just think it might not be possible to play him without offending someone and with belarus i think it's kind of the same except there's a much smaller group of people likely to RECOGNIZE whats offensive about her character. other than that i also like to play italy, germany, holy roman emipre, rome, and pre-puberty hungary, canada, and america. now i'm assuming we've seen alfred in many comics since i last looked because of him being a main character, along with germany and italy. but as for the others /hand waggle

as for your general advice, thank you very much i really appreciate what you've taken the time to write. i guess my concern is of doing something taboo. both with possible castmates and not. for example my thought is they use their "human" names when introducing themselves to strangers but call each other by their country names. of course this is something i would have to discuss with other castmates but it seems to be a big fandom for headcanons and i've seen a huge amount of variety.

i guess what i really want to know is what sorts of these things are common and what are not? but anyway dont feel as though you need to respond. i mostly just wanted to say thanks and sort my thoughts out. thank you again.

I think you'll find that on DW at this point there are only a few groups of players that play from Hetalia and they tend to overlap. At this point some groups are comfortable enough with each other to have some assumed headcanon that they don't need to discuss among one another that you'll see come out in various games, but I think the general rule has always been that the first character there gets to set the basic Hetalia headcanon, but that person should also try to be vague about certain very personal things/things that often vary if at all possible. Keeping headcanon personal works: any time you can be vague and imply that while it may be this way for your nation it might not be that way for another one is a good way to work with things before you know who you'll be playing with. That's also the easiest way to deal with the human name/nation name thing--just say that how each nation introduces themselves to people is an individual choice.

With the DW groups I think there's a fair bit of emphasis on working history in with the comics; while going to the point that the character isn't Himaruya's characterization would obviously not be a good idea, fleshing out what's provided with a more nuanced interpretation is. Having Lithuania and Poland actually not be friends wouldn't be IC for Hetalia, but you can work in more shades and include arguments and various periods of butting heads and degrees of closeness over time, for example. The one big thing I think that would be totally not cool is to assume someone else's headcanon for them without already knowing what it is; try to avoid saying things that aren't proven by canon about other characters if you don't have that character in the game whose player you can ask.

Of course, the best way is to just talk to castmates if/when you have them. I can't imagine any of us being unhappy to have someone new to play with!

they were based just on stereotypes and people that himaruya had met from those countries, with south korea being one of the more offensive ones, but he's really fleshed them out more as time has gone on. korea is a lot more toned down now and it's implied a lot of his behavior is for show when he's in public because he behaves in a more hardworking and focused way when he's by himself.

the thing to remember is that the characters are first and foremost people with their own thoughts, feelings and desires that overlap a lot with the people of their countries but not always. so if you take the stance that "this character is their own person but also represents this country" they may still have some offensive stereotypes, but hopefully the people you play with will recognize you don't see it as being what the actual real country is about.

but even though they're people they're names ARE their country names (as shown in the strip where prussia is talking about getting a new name when he went from being the teutonic knights to the duchy of prussia). human names are a convenience but not their real names. we never see them ever being called by those names in any of the comic strips, even by humans they interact with, probably because we only see the dealing with people who know who they are or who they never give a name at all.

i personally have never understood why people make a big deal out of the human names when the comics never mention them whatesoever. france brings an actress to the halloween dinner and she only knows him as france. germany is called germany by his soldiers. it's what people who know the truth call them. if you character is one who is more likely to hide who and what they are, using a human name makes sense, but otherwise, why would they use it if we never see them using them before?

i do agree with the above anon though that it makes sense to stick to what the people already in the game go with or to make it noticeable that your character is doing different out of their own preference. if you're the first then you are setting the stage, but you shouldn't dictate to anyone coming after you either.

You're all idiots except for me

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