Why did you choose your muse?

[Worldie]

Derp linked a thread on Mirrored Pasts asking people how they started RPing their muse and how you developed them and I kind of want to hear the stories behind our members so--comment below? owo

[Joselle]

SHOOT I WROTE A LOT

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{Nicoleta}For long, I have been fascinated by femme fatales. I grew up just admiring these kinds of characters. They’re seductive, cunning, mysterious, and independent. These empowering attributes of the female character contradicted with the traits I saw in the usual heroines and leading ladies in books and movies. Then I just started embracing the flaws as a necessary part of character building. For Hetalia, it all started with Hungary. I viewed her as a strong female character, though I was somewhat annoyed that she was the only female that displayed any kind of ‘strength’ around four years ago. Also, she mainly interacted with guys to emasculate herself, which was totally fine, but I wanted more females. Also noticed that Himaruya gave her a rival, the mysterious Romania who fights Hungary like “cats and dogs”.

Then I thought, “Hah! Cat fight!” I developed more of a liking to strong female versus strong female. I figured Elizaveta needs an equally strong lady rival to stand out amongst the throng of (uselesscough) men. So, I created Nicoleta, a lady Romania who started out as the total opposite of Elizaveta. Short hair to long hair; cat (lynx) to dog (wolf); darker scheme to lighter scheme; unapologetically antagonistic versus kind and righteous; appearing masculine but acting feminine versus appearing feminine but acting masculine—these are the pairs of foils that apply to Nicoleta and Elizaveta respectively.

Not only that, I delved more into Romania’s culture and fell in love with it. Romania has this ‘darker’, witchy and ‘macabre’ scheme to its culture and lore, so I thought that fits perfectly to that vamp of a femme fatale. I molded Nicoleta to being that dark lady, that cruel vixen, that stock character who’s always placed as the evil villainess of the story. But of course, it is only her fate to be set as the antagonist. As you all know, any character is the protagonist of his or her own story. So I was not going just let her be a one-dimensional buxom badass hot lady (although this description rings true).

There are a lot of undertones to her personality that makes her particularly my favorite muse. She’s a set of complex behaviors, and the fact that it can be misunderstood and can quickly be labeled as ‘bitchy’ actually pleases me. What I aimed to do was take that femme fatale and make her more than just a sex symbol. Course, giving her a backstory takes away the mystery of the femme fatale, but it also lets her motivations be known, her reason, her desires, and her weaknesses—especially her weaknesses. Yes, Nicoleta was made to be a strong rival to Elizaveta, but her story revolves around her own weakness, which might just be the touch of irony that Nicoleta is so fond of. She’s a disillusioned character, with her world revolving around lies and identities, but her upper-hand is that she has been able to twist it to her advantage (world war allusions here cough—in addition to a lot of Romanian cultural allusions in general). Although she was initially created to be hated, the subtle endearing traits she has makes it much too easy for me to be attached to her.

The best part about her is that she knows she is bad. Her acceptance and understanding of her personality brings forth this kind of control that I have thought is lacking in most traditional female characters. Despite the usual stereotypes, I see her more as the wild, dramatic, and edgier than the typical femme fatale. That's why Nicoleta’s a whirlwind of fun, whimsical, a chaotic force, and she is also always changing. I find myself at a challenge when it comes to solidifying those deeper personality traits, because she literally does her own shit, and that is what makes her awesome.

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{Donald}Donald was created based off this character I saw in a movie. I don’t remember his name, but the man of this movie was a cheerful man, goofy in his way, and quirky with that British charm. Thus, Donald was created off of those threads, and that interweaved with some Northern Irish/Irish culture. He doffs the hat in greeting, is a gentleman to females, favors platonic relationships, and is an all-around good guy with a liking for crisps, alcohol, and dancing. So lo and behold, the freckled-face and smiling ginger was conceived. For a spin, I added tons of brogue and a penchant for prattling for the fun of it. He’s a fun energetic sunshine, but like Nicoleta to Elizaveta, he also has many foils to Ireland (Aoife).

Donald is calmer than what one would imagine an Irish to be. Stereotypes color the typical Irish denizen to be brazen and fiery, loud and possibly always drunk. I flipped it so that there is a bit more esteem to his demeanor. More importantly, I wanted that to contrast with what he is inside: a mess. Northern Ireland has gone through many troubles, and I reflected that through inner, emotional turmoil. Religion plays a big role in his characterization, and it might have also been an insert from my past religious experiences. However, religion is his primary motivator, and his faith is his saving grace for all of the afflictions he had underwent through.

Contrary to his sunny behavior, Donald is a sad person. As explained in his background, Donald went through all sorts of trouble in the name of what he thought was right. I wanted to tweak with the ‘moral villain’ or ‘divided hero’ archetype, showing that shining knights may not always be what they appear to be. Though I think I have really underplayed his depression, and kept it on the ‘down low’ as much as possible, however it does affect his mental health. I didn’t want his sadness to smother his charm, otherwise I’d fall in that trap of making a character too sappy. Either way, Donald’s a unique muse of mine because of his struggle with the good and bad, and it might just represent how I view religion.

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{Marianne}Luxembourg was originally the Gibraltar of Europe, once an impregnable fortress that resided in between three countries. It was desirable for strategic advances and for pride, therefore it had been fought over for centuries. So I thought Marianne would fit as the desired princess of every traditional fairytale. And it is probably very ‘mary-sue-ish’. But knowing me, I wanted to change it up and make her more human. I wanted to showcase just how much damage expectations can be done to a character.

Like mentioned before, pretty Marianne is also the result of another observation from traditional female characters. There are ladies who are idolized for their divine beauty, and helplessness. Gentle princesses stay in the high tower, unable to fight their fate. They are admired far and wide for their ‘feminine’ practices and talents. I put all of that in Marianne. Yes, she is the gentle princess with that divine beauty in appearance, but she’s also the queen. She is duty, and she is tough. Although she may not always get what she wants, she tries to take the reins of her own fate, and it challenges her.

In addition to her beauty, she is intelligent, and taking up a notch, she is aspirational and diligent. She aspires so much, and her drive is both her strength and her weakness. Marianne was crowned with a myriad of expectations, in addition to attention because of her appearance. Though it weighed her down, she has been going forward anyway. However, this is when her aspirations take her to a turn. She plays to finish the race, to achieve, and to win. Marianne is so forward and moral of a character, that she loses her grip of the present. Her pitfall is her own loneliness and tunnel vision toward her goals. It explains why she has been so isolated from her family, and why she has so little friends. This creates that kind of a personal rift and contrast to Belgium/ Charlotte. (For a fun thing, Present, Past, and Future goes with Niklaas, Charlotte, and Marianne). More psychological mushes go on, mostly with Marianne struggling to be who she wants to be. It’s sort of like she’s fighting to break out of the stereotype that she can be a woman, be beautiful, and be great by her own making.

Unfortunately, she makes as many mistakes as all of my other muses. But I adore her for that reason. Coincidentally, she’s stylized to be a bit like Elsa, so she is a woman who is holed up in her own high fortress, afraid to open up lest her cracks show. Another important thing is, I want to showcase a different kind of strength, a mental one. I REALLY opposed Marianne being able to fight, even though this is an action-filled rp. I want her to be the one who can’t, to represent characters who can’t fight (not that I don’t like fighter ladies!). But in this case, she’ll be the physically vulnerable one. Yes that goes with that traditional lady princess archetype. Despite that, her strength is on the inside, one that is coupled with perseverance and determination. A quote that best goes with describing Marianne’s position in this is: “A woman's strength isn't just about how much she can handle ... It's also about how much she must handle after she's broken.”

[Deleted]

Sheep. Fluffy Sweaters. Fairy Sheep.

[Astrit Zupan]

For me, it all started when a certain friend of mine came to me and said, "How would you like to do a Hetalia roleplay with me?" It transpired that she was playing Serbia on Manor of Fate, and the way she had built the character meant she really wanted a Kosovo to interact with. We were very close at that time, so she came to me to see if I would do it. I knew basically nothing about Kosovo at the time, except for tiny little scraps of information I'd gathered from conversations with that same friend and her sister, but she convinced me to do it, and thus Astrit was born. To make up for the fact that I hadn't known anything about the country he was supposed to represent, I ended up doing quite a lot of research, and building every last detail of his personality on some aspect of the history or culture that I ran across. (And then the comments on that first application mentioned that "you don't have a lot of cultural references," a deeply ironic statement given that at that point the character consisted of nothing but cultural references; I was just too shy to point them out.) The result has been... well, one of the strongest, loudest, most vivid muses I've ever had, who's grown ever stronger as I've learned ever more about his country and about people in general.

Era didn't show up until much later, but I'd like to mention her in conjunction with Astrit because her existence was a natural consequence of his: Kosovo has an ethnic Albanian majority, and their cultures are interlinked closely enough that it's impossible to study Kosovo without learning about Albania. As such, I got interested enough to make a standalone Albania character, too. I also used Era's creation to clarify a few points of culture that Astrit's young age made difficult to communicate in his; they share many traits to reflect the strong cultural similarities, so Era can demonstrate what those traits look like on an adult.

And then there's Feliks. Feliks is so far my only Hetalia muse to show up of his own accord for reasons unrelated to that initial choice to accept my friend's suggestion that I play Kosovo. And I do mean that he showed up of his own accord; I've told this story to some of y'all before, but about two days after I'd first read a couple of Himaruya's strips that basically consisted of "dumb Pole" jokes, I was sitting in math class and learning about the Poles who were the first to break the Enigma code (shortly before the beginning of WWII; they had to secretly send their prototype decryption machine, which they called the "bomba," and the information on how to use it to England in order to avoid losing it all to the Nazis along with their lives; it's a thoroughly awesome story), and the character just marched into my head and informed me in no uncertain terms that he didn't like certain choices Hima had made about how to portray him, "and you will do better." (Implied "or else.") There was really nothing I could say to that except, "Yes, sir." And ever since, I've been trying to play him as respectfully as possible, in honor of the fact that the vast majority of Polish people I've known either in history or IRL were made of pure awesome with extra awesomesauce.

Funny side story with Feliks: in real life, Poland has in recent years had some very weird political debates because someone decided to define "gender studies" as "boys wearing dresses." When I heard about this... well, I reckon my Feliks had already picked his side long before. It kinda fits with stuff I've written in AUs like this one, too.

[Kyle Kirkland]

To be honest, choosing the Kyle-muse was a matter of convenience. When I first got into Hetalia I wanted to make sure I did good job at RP-ing the country I chose. I wanted to go beyond the stereotypes and get the feel of the country right. The only way I could feel certain that I pulled this off was to do my own country. Himaruya has done a bit on Australia but for the most part I have the fun of developing the character myself. Some research does happen but most of my "inspiration" comes from listening to old rock bands and watching comedy, especially 'The Chaser' and 'Hamish and Andy'. Additionally I have the luxury of having grown up in the country I RP and knowing instinctively about cultural references that would go straight over many researcher's heads. The struggles that comes with this though is that I'm very worried about being biased and making Kyle too perfect. I do my best to remember that Kyle is neither a hero nor a villain, he's just a guy with a koala and is a bit of an optimist with a habit of downplaying catastrophes.

Charlie came around when I started getting sick of having a muse who is a) a dude and b) an idiot. I thought it would be a nice change to RP a female for once. Wy immediately attracted me partly because she's adorable (I seriously want to pick her up and cuddle her sometimes) and partly because she's very young. I've studied a bit of developmental psychology and the way the brain changes during early adolescence is absolutely fascinating. Their minds are just ready to start thinking beyond the obvious black and white but they don't have the life experience to fill in those grey areas, something that makes pre-teens both endearing and annoying. Charlie is all about going through that process of realising just how complex your thoughts can be. She is also very grave by nature, it took me a while to figure out why, but then I realised it was because she was also very creative. Imagination and melancholy go hand in hand and Charlie walks between them. I worry for her a great deal but also enjoy the challenge she presents.

[DERP]

in which I gave everyone drabbles but I gave a novel for Nesia
maybe this is done. maybe not. maybe I'll tweak things later but for now I'm done editing.

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{Floriana}Because I wanted to try playing a kid character and I like playing characters not widely known, hence I pick her. I was also intrigued with why I don't know much about one of our neighbors. I had to use proxy and went to the uncharted regions of the internet for research. It was an eye-opening experience, but I couldn't fit them all in the body of a 10-year-old. So I chose to show those things subtly. Somewhere in the depths of my mind she had grown older, still stubborn, and still missing some members of her family.

Maybe after I do more research she will be resurfaced.

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{Megumi}In his canonical characteristic, Kiku is often portrayed more like an old man. Hence I made his nyo counterpart younger and identify closer with the Japanese pop subculture. Hima only noted that she's a 'yamato nadeshiko' and she cut her hair when Japan finally ended its isolation - showing her will to open herself to other people; so I look for YN portrayal in 21st century as Megumi's base and added more spice later. She first surfaced when I looked at the character list and thought that we need a detective character; or sort of a civilian who goes to investigate curious cases on their own. Megumi seized that chance.

I also can identify to her in some aspects/recognize her trait in other people: she has online and offline lives, both seemingly of two different persons; her liking to gothic lolita fashion and fanfiction (ayyyy). It's also fun playing a character who often portrayed as shy working in an industry that needs a lot of confidence. And she does have a big confidence to do cosplay.

Under all the bright layers, in her core she is no difference than Kiku.

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{Amos}You guys probably has heard how much I babble in cbox about him. Amos started as the untouched, deepest layer of Nesia whom I chose to bring into the surface. I like to include the country's geography and landscape in my muses, that's why Amos is calmer than Nesia. The eastern part of Indonesia has deeper seas and denser jungles. The people itself look different than the western islanders. The Austromelanesid had been roaming the islands long before the Austronesian arrived too, so I made his age older.

Most Indonesia OCs, male or female, often starts from the western side with a dash of eastern side. Physically they look more Austronesian too. So in this AU I want to make an OC based on people of eastern islands, Maluku and Western Papua specifically. Then I realize I have no idea about their history/culture save from what I can gather from the internet (and I still believe there's more than meets the eye). Besides, playing him gives me challenge and advantage: he's more similar to me in terms of temper, but way older with different way to perceive things, as opposed to he younger Nesia. During his creation, his family began to grow a life on their own too. I especially like his mother Saraiya, to me she portrays the tough Papuan women.

Probably TND is the only place where I can play him |D

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{Katya}Ukraine surfaced in early 2013 during my threading with Roma's Russia. I thought it'd be nice to have a soft character close to him. At that time I only know her characterization from the strips and anime - those weren't my favorite. As I looked for a way to make her more fitting in the TND's crime theme, inspiration hit me in the shower.

What if she is a lawless, but her job is not completely against the law? She becomes part of the criminal because of her allegiance choice. The character itself has been shown as motherly, so it was easy to put an emphasize on it. And years ago I bought Florence Nightingale's comic-biography which I felt fit Katya nicely (bonus: at this moment I had no idea that Crimea was a part of Ukraine orz). So thaaat's how I acquire Katya.

After I made myself more comfortable in her skin, I brought her to other places but... for some reason, apart from TND, every places where I app as her died as soon as Katya got accepted. Which is plain weird |D but anyways, making apps help me to understand her better; despite I'm still struggling with Ukrainian history and geography and culture - but I fall in love with the embroidery! It's pretty ;w;b I can incorporate the agriculture part as well into her personality and hobbies. See how her fridge never empty no matter how many people coming and going?

Personality wise, Katya is everything I am not which poses a challenge to master her: motherly, kind, protective, organized - imagine the perfect mother. I molded her around that image too and pretty recently I discover a downside of that mother trope and plan to bring it into the light during RPing here =w=
some things I can relate to her are being the oldest sister and the button problems pfff. To make up the canon characterization, I made her emotionally sensitive yet controlled, but possessed physical strength. But her strong point isn't in battle power, so to speak, instead she rather becomes a shield who protects her charges. I think it contrasts her siblings who certainly will fare better if violence erupts.

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{Nesia}Mmmmmm where do I start-

I never pay much attention to Hetalia until mid 2012 when a friend of mine wouldn't stop fangirling about the Maaf doujin. So I gave it a shot, then start watching the Hetalia anime and read the comic strips. What got me into Hetalia was not the fanservice material, but rather the idea of anthropomorphic countries itself and how they changed (and remain unchanged) through the course of history.

On a one boring day, I went to omegle and put 'Hetalia' on my interest. Then I found a link to a chatzy room for Hetalia RPers given by an omegle stranger. I didn't RP much, only watched others interacted, but it made me interested in roleplaying. The only local place I found had been closed awhile ago. Then I kinda forgot about it until I stumbled upon Icy's TND ad on HetaLJ. I checked the forum, went through the rules and fact and whatnot. It piqued my interest so bad I decided to take a plunge (two days later I regretted this decision, scolding my impulsive self |D") despite my non-existent knowledge in lit RP and never wrote anything in English aside from schoolwork (there's one Death Note fanfic though...). With my lack of knowledge and the short time to complete the app, I chose the safe route by making an OC instead. Because I was also too lazy to research another country, so--

To be honest I was surprised I got accepted. She wasn't fully fleshed yet and I knew it wasn't my best work. Thanks to Capt and Roma, I learned more about roleplay as I write post after post. A month later I built up courage to join MoF because everyone always talked about it XD and here was the phase where I moved from the human skin into a nation's embodiment. Their application was more challenging too, prompting me to dive deeper than I've done. Then after MoF... I forgot which ones I joined pfff but anyways, there were around ten places. The AU nature forced me to explore Nesia more and more so I could fit her in the universe without making her OOC. Soon when I looked back at my TND app I realized how far she had changed, hence I revamped her. Even then, I still feel that she was incomplete.

Long before I got into the fandom, the local Hetalia fanbase itself had been filled with several versions of Indonesia OCs. Some of their characterization are great, okay-yet-skin-deep, some are... IMO, unfit for a nation spirit. There are blatant sues or wish fulfillment self inserts too. Some not-so-good portrayals that make me goes "uh nope" are: moe, "she's-so-beautiful-everyone-wants-to-date-her" (which stems from the believe that our rich natural resources attracts foreigners - it's true - but some writers make "rich natural resources" equals to physical beauty and I'm like oh god noooo how could you--), physically looks like our beauty standard (which I believe kinda disregard the fact that our people tend to have darker skin), still thin with big appetite (this is just a personal preference and an overused trope, no offense), and described right away from the start as alluringly beautiful (again, personal preference, but I let it pass if it was told from other character's perspective). Then again, I'd like to think they are merely the tip of the iceberg and the writers know their OCs better than me /shrugs

Those made me very critical towards Nesia, assessing over and over to keep her from being too close to sue level. I avoided the major fan-headcanon until she's solid enough to stand unaffected, until I can answer why she does this or behaves that way. I also found some good OCs, which triggered my pokemon trainer episode bahaha (I WANT TO BE THE VERY BEEEEEST~). I keep asking myself about which angle is the best to portray her. Our people are still attached to each own traditional culture, so I want to include it too in her bio. But. I. Can't. Choose! I could just include the prominent cultures, but that wouldn't be fair. To me, Indonesia is all of them under one nation - like our motto said, so I need a new approach.

Hetalia is a show that brings up stereotypes a lot, therefore I use the same approach. When we meet a new person, the first thing we'd notice is their face and body, then their name. So what the name Indonesia evokes in most foreigners' minds? That's why I made Nesia's physical body resembles typical Javanese/Balinese people. As the name itself (I'm sure you guys still remember this), I took 'Nesia' from the nation's name, a term coined by an English ethnologist from Greek word nèsos. In 1928, during Sumpah Pemuda (Youth Oath), the term is chosen to name the nation, the people and the language. Besides, Nesia is a common name nowadays (facebook says there are 5k+ Nesia's; I personally befriended one or two). Her last name, Notonegoro, came from a prophecy made by Kediri king, Jayabaya. While most people go without surname here, Notonegoro can be a surname or just simply 'name'. It also means 'able to govern a country' in Javanese so I feel it fits Nesia, while also showing one of our most prominent culture. Annisa is Arab for 'the woman'; a common female Muslim name that shows the biggest religion in Indonesia. Pertiwi is a common female name and the name of our official national personification Ibu Pertiwi/Mother Earth, identified with the Hindu goddess Prithvi; this name not only shows the connection with our official personification, but also highlighting the Hindu influence that has been around since more than two millennium ago and you can see the trace in our temples especially in Bali. Ingkiriwang actually a surname for Minahasan people of Manado in North Sulawesi. It means "(who) comes from the sky/slope of a mountain". I chose that because I need a name from middle or eastern Indonesia, and the meaning itself is nice. I guess it fits our folklore and traditional beliefs that our best leaders are sent directly from the sky.

Of course I still can't fit all the cultural tidbits, so I make them show in her likes/hobbies or during the roleplay. Which fits how we usually know people; the longer you hang around someone, the more you know. And it gives me time to properly research the culture too. I choose the age of early twenties because currently we're still struggling to handle our own economy and abundant resources (or lack thereof). Like humans, that age is the phase of finding oneself's place in the world.

In building her personality, I enjoy including things I recognize from everyday life and hated it XD but Nesia is a mix of contradictory traits, so I need to control the scale (in AUs) or find logical explanation. The contradictions show up because I want to include all social layers, education/health quality, things like that. Therefore, I love making her in AUs to showcase the variety of Nesia from different angles. I'm glad I've overcame my fear to push her into the dark side of life too. Toying with her bad side is fun for me, because I know a lot from the real life and despise them. Yet for her, I want to show that this is the real Indonesia, as seen from within, with a shell that shapes like how foreigners see us. So yeah, we are more than meets the eye.

Prepare for surprises.

[Worldie]

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{Mihai}Once upon a time it was the summer of 2000-something (10, maybe?) and Worldie checked Pixiv like, a lot. She also followed a bunch of Hetalia artists because it was her goal to save as many pretty Hetalia pics as possible (trust me, I probably have all the decent-looking APH pics for a few months straight in 2010). So one day, Worldie checked the updates of the artists she followed and was like "OMG WHO IS THIS HOTTIE--" She actually thought it was APH Iceland at first, looking a lot less like a loser than usual, and if it had been then whoo boy—one of her APH friends would've been in for some competition. BUT LO AND BEHOLD. Somehow, maybe through google translating the artist's comments, she discovered that Himaruya had put out a new character design and Pixiv had jumped on the fanart opportunity for APH Romania (but like, who wouldn't jump that tho amirite?).

SO BEGAN WORLDIE'S LOVE AFFAIR.

My first time RPing Romania was on HetaQuest v.1 (to be HetaQuest v.final if we never finish it—ahem) which was being run by Mini and a mutual friend at the time. Misso and Asu were also there with us. I don't remember much about my portrayal at the time; he was a vampire, he had this thing going on with Mini's Eliza, and yeah pfft. I basically submitted an app and got a couple of posts in, and it died lol. So that was that for HQ, rest in peace. And then some other things happened. I think I spent most of my time RPing him on BGO with my Tinierme friends, and then I applied to Asu's first version of TND (he was a serial killer who worked with blackmarket organ smuggler and back-alley surgeon Gupta woo), but then that died too. Insert time gap here in which I got obsessed with Tsuritama and ran an indie tumblr RP account.

Anyway, the second (third?) time I RPed Mihai was here. I don't know exactly what I was thinking when I first designed him—it's been so long and I'm influenced by how I write him now. I think, if anything, I aim to make my characters interesting, so—god idk—he's just this super complicated and contradictory person. He's ruthless, but not excessively so. He's a romantic in every way but the right way. He believes his cause is noble and he'll do awful things to get there. He's sarcastic and cynical and prepared to justify anything and everything he does, but he's also intensely vulnerable when you get down to it. He's someone destined to fuck up the good things in his life over and over and over again. Tortured antagonist? Maybe. But in my own opinion, the more people who don't excuse his actions, the better. He's supposed to be charming and sexy and desirable, but ultimately I made him a character who should fall and would deserve every sharp rock that hits him on the way (and if I did my job right, there would be people who are glad for it).

My interpretation of him changes in every AU though, and this is pretty specific to TND (and LLI if that ever revives). The loveliest part about Mi, I think, is that he's so volatile. I can play him in different extremes in each AU and god, it's just so fun. I love him in every way he can be written—vulnerable, broken, without a shred of agency in life (IoF), or desperate and deluded, with an entire deck of cards up his sleeve (TND/LLI), or genuinely hopeful and caring and sweet (HW/BitD). I feel like for Mi, what becomes of him is definitely determined by his environment—someone who can thrive under the right circumstances, but will slowly rot under the wrong ones.

Another thing is that I really, really like trope subversion. Mi is definitely a character that has sexual desirability and is not afraid to use it, and none of that "no homo" stuff either. As Icy noted in her post for Nico who also does this, Mi plays with the femme fatale trope too (or maybe l'homme fatale, whatever). Since the femme fatale is usually restricted to women and sexual, dangerous men are excluded from the categorization (despite fitting the trope very well), so I do enjoy subverting that and making it a pretty overt trait of Mi's. In some ways, it's also a way of channeling of my own sexuality, I think—our orientations are pretty much the same too. Additionally, I wanted to make a (white, cis) male character who isn't afraid of femininity. So here is a guy who is very conscious about his looks, doesn't mind using make up and whose reaction to wearing feminine clothing isn't shame and embarrassment. "Emasculation," here, is not a concept. Not really revolutionary when it comes to fandom, but some aspects of it is.

I didn't really develop him in a particular way, I think. Like I never sat down and meticulously matched culture/history to behavior or looked at foils. If anything, I think I really just went with the "feel" of the character and the country (excluding conservative and religious values), including some archetypes that I enjoyed (the quirky trickster), and it's really sort of just developed naturally from there. Mi is by far my strongest muse though; it's really pretty easy for me to play him and because he's so volatile, there's so much room left to explore. I especially like more dynamic AUs like TND and such, because it allows me to stretch muse's limits and to write the sort of character who is more and more flawed the more you dig into him. And honestly, my favorite trope is to let a beloved character destroy themselves through their own mistakes. <3

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{Lucille}Awww yeah. Luci is a beautiful princess. I can't give much background on my experience with her, because tbh I haven't had much. My first time playing her was on TND, and I picked her up because we needed more women of color. So yeah, that's how that started. I actually just kind of want to lay out my thought process with creating her personality and her backstory this time around (as in, post-revamp Luci).

I think one of the most important aspects about her is that she is a black girl. That already comes with a whole host of stereotypes: nanny, slave, welfare queen, domestic servant, sassy/angry black lady (I mean, just look at the Oscar nominated black actresses and at what their roles were ooo). It's not exactly fair to compare a Seychelloise lady to the experiences of black Americans though, and I'm perfectly aware of that, but there is (sob) so precious little information about Seychelles I can readily access, so I'm drawing from what I know. But that's a digression and a bit of a disclaimer. Anyhow, the thing is, is that I did my best with research, but Seychelles is fucking tiny and there's not all that much out there.

I think she definitely fits the "sassy black girl" trope in some ways. She's a loudmouth, she's outspoken, there are times when she gets angry and aggressive. That is sort of a weakness in my own writing, I suppose (I'm just not too down with RPing characters who aren't snarky in some way, though the other traits are much more flexible). But then, I also wanted to make sure that I could write her in ways just beyond the stock character and deliberately subvert some tropes that are only accessible to white characters. She has a bit of a dual nature going on. On one hand, she's very punk, antiestablishment and vocal about it; on the other, she is great with kids, hardworking (when she needs to be), supportive of others, and generally quite positive. And on her off-days, she dresses pretty and feminine and is around people who dote on her quite a bit, like a princess.

Another trope that I very consciously chose to subvert is glorified white criminality. White characters are allowed to be sophisticated villains who people sympathize with, while non-white villains tend to not have that great of a role—they're usually henchmen and meat shields, who are easy for people to write off as too dumb or not given enough exposure to be emotionally invested in. And, well, this is TND and the glorification of crime is all over the place, right? So I wanted to mix it up with Luci (her role is actually inspired by Hard Candy, an excellent movie with Ellen Page btw). Luci is definitely the sort of person who is protective, especially of other girls, so I thought why not add a little twist to it? Why not make it so that she is willing to do whatever it takes to protect them? It makes her actions morally questionable, for sure, but I felt that it was important to start allowing non-white characters to be sophisticated, sympathetic criminals and complex characters. So voila, here we have h4rd candii, who is emotionally damaged and morally ambiguous, but whose aims are also noble and sympathetic.

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{Ivan}I was just about to start off with Natalya but realized that my beginnings with her revolve a lot around Ivan first, so. here we go, the sunflower of my life...

October 2010, I'm five years into my experience as an RPer. Absolutely all of my initial RPing went into an MMORPG called Furcadia (yeah, it revolved around furries. I was in third grade when I was introduced to it and thought it was cute and perfectly normal. If furries had a bad reputation back then, well, I was not on social media at 8 years old so I wouldn't have known. xD I spent even more than five years on Furc, and although it's all behind me now, I can tell you from experience that there was a good majority of people who were not creepy/gross.) Expectedly, 5+ years of blossoming in this community and adapting my writing skills to those of others around me, hundreds of OCs came about from me. One was Russian and I knew seriously nothing about the country -- let's just skip ahead a month or so -- I did a lot of research in that time until, honestly, I became the Russian version of a weeaboo. Whatever that would be called. I decided to start teaching myself the alphabet/numbers/basic things around the end of 2010. Those were good things, of course, but my Russaboo phase was actually really bad and I'm glad I've calmed down : D. Not long after it began, I was RPing a Spanish character from a show I loved and somebody told me that he looked like this Spain from Hetalia. After looking this up, I watched the pilot episode and initially thought, "what? was that??" and decided against continuing, but... I ended up watching more a few months later.

Basically, Ivan became my favorite character before I even saw his face. It was just: "my favorite country is a person?? aweSOMeEEE??" (I didn't care for anime just as I don't right now, and probably wouldn't have watched it if it weren't for my language/history love.) It was April 2011 that I started RPing Ivan on FF.net. There was this craze going around where people would write letters to each other as Heta characters. Similar to IC ask blogs on Tumblr, you would post an IC starter that was like "Dear World, it's (character) here! Send letters to me and I'll answer you~!" and so people would submit IC letters as reviews to you, and you'd respond to them in the next chapter of your "fanfic". I had jumped on the typical "Russia is bloodthirsty and kinda wacky" bandwagon but thank goodness I never jumped the other R-word fanon quality that the fandom SOMEHOW put to him. Those letter things were fun while they lasted.

I moved on to actual forum RPing in early 2012. The first app I wrote for Russia was hahahahha. Three little paragraphs of personality (admittedly I had to use the wiki for help). I struggled just to find 5 likes and dislikes. It's also when I started chatango RPing. Ivan was still more violent than I make him now but I began to learn better from that point on. I'm not sure I can put them in order, but I really joined a looot of forums since 2012, using Ivan as my staple... There was a Gakuen place where I met Mona in 2012, then there was Manor, a short-lived X-Men crossover, BiTD, Chessverse... probably at least a dozen, though a lot of them were run by a certain someone and started hurting my mental health. Before everything went downhill, though, I had already developed Ivan quite a bit. I never minded rewriting his personality so many times. I was becoming attached enough that I was always motivated to write things for him. As I joined more places, I started paying attention to other Russias. I heard this one story more than once about someone who roleplayed a cannibalistic, r-word Ivan. Another involved a mun whose Ivan was apparently so villainous and hated that he deserved to die by being gutted. These stories actually made me cry within seconds, and I guess that's when I began to grow so protective over my own muse. I imagined people hating my Ivan and wanting him to die and that was just... so scary to me? I realized that I really didn't want that, so I started to dive into his softer side and thus began the Ivan muse I'm much more happy with. (Tbh it started my trend of RPing nicer characters because I'm still afraid of my muses being hated. I started off with a violent Ivan and now I can't do violence unless forced fff-)

I mentioned having tons of OCs but I've really never developed a character as much as him. My enthusiasm over learning all about Russian language, culture and history never ceased, either, so I used that to help me flesh him out -- stereotypes are only thinly included in his personality. I was careful when making him more of a sweet person, knowing that I couldn't erase crueler periods of his history. His most prominent Jerkyjerk era was certainly the Soviet times. I accept that he's still somewhat a jerk in modern days, but long ago I headcanoned that his desperation to make friends again falls on his accepting the fact that he has been a terrible person in some spots of history, but now he wants to let people know that he can be better. Such a change is difficult when he's still unable to grasp that the things he does are childish and unfitting for someone his age, but~ that's another huge part of his character. I've thought about his history and I enjoy thinking about what has led up to today -- all of the trauma he's faced (it's definitely something to consider since, according to Hima, he's had the most bloody history-), how his worse bosses have had an impact on his mental/emotional health, close people he's lost, etc.

An example of my incorporating his nation!verse personality is IoF, where he, as a lonesome human seeking company, used the cruel method of adopting mutants because it was the only way he knew he would be assured long-term companionship. He wanted to show mutants that he could be a nice and loving owner, but when he refused to believe that all mutants should be free, it's hard to believe that he's on the good side, right? It's a lot of complication and I like that I've been able to sort that out so well in his long personality. Human AUs like Gakuen verse are where I grasp the opportunity to make him as sweet as possible, but still a little intimidating because he's so tall and burly in each AU. uvu I just like taking every little detail about him into account and, well, expanding things that don't seem good enough in canon. Imagining him being rude to his sisters is so hard, wtf. To me, he loves Belarus as much as Ukraine. And then like, there's so much that I can flesh out about his smile alone... he really doesn't want people to worry about him, so he forces a smile to tell himself and everyone that he's okay. He really wants to see smiles and happiness in other people, especially if they're genuine. At first I really hated when people saw him as fat, but now I'm all for him being pudgy LOL - it's cute because he's self-conscious about it. He's self-conscious about other things, too, like his nose and his scarf, which I think is so much better than making him such a serious character. He has a temper, but he shouldn't respond with anger to everything. Making him flustered and easily embarrassed is a good step in making him less of a scary person. ;w;

It's good to recognize his flaws, even if he doesn't really learn from them. His jealous tendencies and his habit of making reckless decisions are often his downfall. He can be unsympathetic towards people, but if he's hurt someone he truly cares for, he'll really strive to do a better job and make things better again. I'm so on board with the canon-mentioned thing about him being shy. It's a bit fun to mix together social butterfly qualities and shy qualities -- he really likes people and making friends (except he's so bad at making friends), but when it's the other way around and people are trying to befriend him, he is pretty timid and unsure what to do with himself.

So, in three months, it will be four years since this all started off. I thought it would be sad to write this, but I'm still proud that I have such a prominent muse. I've strove for perfection with him and, although Hetalia's no longer the fandom I enjoy most and I've moved on to RPing non-Hetalia characters again, he still is a muse that I don't think I could lose. He's definitely my strongest. It's hard to capture everything that's going on with him, but I do really like the complex character he's become.. though I doubt I did good explaining some of it just now fff.

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{Natalya}Back to FF.net. Those letter things lasted a while but eventually were either inactive or banned because, well, they weren't actual fanfics and kinda went against the rules. In summer of 2011, someone (you guys might remember Cori) created a proboards forum where we could do the same thing - create threads where we'd write letters back and forth between our characters. This was my first RP forum, though there were no applications and whatnot involved. This place is fondly remembered as "Letters" and it's where I met Amy, Reed, Dee, and Silv! They met me as Belarus, as she was the character I took up there. Russia was taken by someone else and boy did I become angry over time - the mun was the pile of garbage who once RPed him as a vicious person and r-word. But she never gave him up so I had to live with it. Anyway.

I didn't like Bela at first. I'll be weeping as I write this but I thought she was a bitch. Since I obviously did spend a lot of time on FF back then, I started to read fanfics revolving around Rus/Bela and thought.. I guess this isn't so bad. I don't know how exactly I came to like her but it happened and she became the first Hetalia muse that I legitimately RPed. Everyone on that site, including myself, was OBNOXIOUSLY obsessed with Hetalia, so the RPing was kind of embarrassing... but yes. It was a start. I'm not sure if this is correct, but the second forum I took her up on was a Zombie AU place... I was rather fond of my Belarus after having RPed BelaIre with Amy's Ireland, so I decided to expand upon her and write her a proper personality. (This was after I started writing apps elsewhere, so I kinda knew how they worked.) By the time Chessverse rolled around, I liked her almost as much as I did Ivan.

So began The Struggle. I kept wanting to play both her and Ivan everywhere, but obviously that could not happen! I often wanted to play her as a change of pace but I ended up being indecisive and falling back on Ivan and.. it was a constant dilemma. fff. But, as with Ivan, I took the effort to add more and more to her personality. What I did to her was similar to him: easing on the more "unstable/crazy/obsessive" details and bringing much softer qualities about her. One trait that I adore most revolves around her relationship with Ivan: She'll be jealous when he finds a significant other, but she won't do anything to hurt that person. Honestly, she wants him happy, so why destroy what does make him happy...? If anything, I became protective over their relationship. I hated seeing how other people interpreted Belarus's feelings about him, like, insTANTLY wanting to KILL his GIRLFRIEND (or boyfriend) and THReAtenING HIM all HTE TIME-- nooo.

I believe he's a huge part of her life, so I like to be intricate about those kinds of things. I dislike the idea of her hating him for rejecting her so often - I prefer that she moves on, blossoming and showing everyone that she's her own person. I also punch the idea of her hating Ukraine right in the face. She's protective over Ukraine just as she's protective over Ivan. A little jealous that he seems to prefer Ukraine sometimes, but she's seriously not going to blame her or anything.

I'm all for the idea of Belarus being one of the most developed characters of Himaruya's. She's incredible and just as complex as Ivan is -- there's a war of emotions going on underneath the surface, hidden behind stoic expression so unlike Ivan's sunniness. Here's my love for making softhearted characters coming into play, but really, she isn't the cold bitch that she may come off as being. She has reason not to trust people immediately. If someone bothers her or does something without her consent, she won't hesitate before responding physically or verbally. She's strong, blunt, and gets her points across, which are some of many fundamental aspects of her being a strong female character. The whole idea of "females aren't weak even if they seek a relationship with a man" is good here. Tbh I've only paired Nat with ladies so it's weird for me to see her NOT falling in love with a woman, ahaha. She's really compassionate in relationships, either way. She wants her partner to be safe and happy even if she's not so great at expressing happiness herself. She's a woman whose neutral attitude is usually stone cold and emotionless but, on the inside, she rereeallly loves romance and affection. She's a sap in relationships and totally loves things like cheesy gifts, bad romance novels, and wedding planning and that's just~~ adorable. uvu I actually really adore her bonding with other women. I feel as thought she bonds with them more quickly, and they're more likely to get a rare smile or laugh out of the cutie. 

The best thing about that is that she isn't flirty or good at sexual advances, etc. Her methods of showing people that she desires them are so straight-forward that it's silly?? I feel like the only way she could learn to flirt is by bad romance novels/shows and taking after Ivan, so she turns out to be horrible at it - but she doesn't care. eue I focus a lot of her personality on other people, strangely enough. I don't think it's a bad thing at all that she wants to be in a relationship. She's built walls for herself, but it isn't impossible that someone can break through them. 

There are all these other things that make her sooOo developed. In her official bio it was mentioned that she likes cardboard, pranks, and random useless trivia? Which is so random but so great that Himaruya is giving her these little details for me to dapple with, lol. I love that she can be seen as an intimidating independent queen when in reality she's also a little dork who doesn't know how to interact with people without being blunt or off-putting. Her enjoyment of pranks, her deep-down desire for affection, her appreciation for baking, fashion and pretty things - she still is a normal young woman. She was just misled by how she viewed Ivan as a little girl, and her affiliation for weapons and darker things are a little less 'normal'.. but I don't see anything being insane about her. She's really well-composed and easily my fave girl in Hetalia, although it's more difficult for me to write characters who aren't extroverted.

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{Alina}I still regret not applying for her like I intended to when TND first opened. There are a lot of guilty reasons for that and perhaps I shouldn't get into them, but.. one reason why it didn't happen was because I didn't know how to make her different from Ivan quite yet. It wasn't a point of time where I really understood how to differentiate canon and nyo. I think the first time I finally did make her her own person was on World Descendants.. and then I revamped her here on TND.

It was especially hard tackling what Hima said about her being "mostly happy but emotionally unstable" or smth like that. I'm still not confident in how I've pulled it off, but she fits in quite well with my love for Russian things, of course. I do think I did well giving her both cultural and personal traits that are separate from Ivan. She's really appreciative over the little things, just as he is, but her little guilty pleasures are different from his. Both are appreciative of things that are considered feminine, such as the color pink - that Ivan can like similar things to Alina and not feel embarrassed or "unmanly" is another thing that I adore. She prefers settling conflicts verbally and dislikes guns, while Ivan is the type to wave a gun around without really thinking much of it.

So she may not be great at handling violence but I don't think that makes her weak. Belarus has more of a "crying is a sign of weakness" kind of girl, whereas Alina is less ready to accept that. I quite like destroying typical gender roles in that she does love things like the color pink, ballet, shopping, and gardening.. but she also does hold an important role in London's field of medical science and, if not for Lea, she'd be quite fine without a relationship. She prefers science to dating stuff, anyway, and is pretty awkward about romance. I also love her being confident about herself and how she looks; maybe even more confident than Ivan is about his appearance. (Me and my chubby Russians fff-) She's really sweet and makes me happy to play and I'm ..just running out of fuel here, after writing about those first two.. so that's all for now

Russia and Belarus are really my pride and joys, so sorry for writing so much. France is another really strong and important muse of mine, but I'm not sure I'll include him.. and Silvia, i suck, maybe later v.v

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ok there are a lot of muses i have but im going to do more main/ones i rly like -- tho matthew was my first muse ever

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{Francis}Okay, so I really disliked Francis at first when I initially began watching Hetalia in probably around 2011. I didn't like his obnoxious character and there were a lot of........ really terrible and offensive jokes about him in the fandom, which was a major ughgugh and although they have thankfully died down, some still exist. But it's actually because people treated Francis like absolute shit that I wanted to try to pick him up as a muse and genuinely take him under my wing. I began to read more fanfics (I spent a lot of time on ff.net), and I began to realize Francis Bonnefoy is in reality a beautiful man who is in love with love. I tried to do my best to expand on developing his character more and delving down deep into what makes Francis France, but my writing was not the best at first. I also didn't really do him justice in the beginning, but I tried as hard as possible to make him human, to give him positive qualities that people could empathize with. He has a tendency to sacrifice his happiness for the sake of others, and often ends up more lonely than I had originally intended him to be. Also, his design is lovely; I love male characters with longer hair, as well as characters with charming and debonair personalities. 

The first forum I was able to take Francis on was Back in the Days. I had first wanted to claim him on Manor of Fate, but someone else had already had him -- and when they finally left, I was too nervous to actually try to portray Francis and the rich history of France on a canon forum. So BiTD it was. I really enjoyed writing his application, and I tweaked it more when I took him on here, TND. He quickly became a precious child and staple muse for me, and I am very protective of him. As time has gone on, my Francis muse has definitely evolved and I'm proud of that. I'm happy I was able to accomplish my goal of improving Francis's image throughout the Hetalia fandom -- as minor as that effect may have been -- and managed to get people who I RPed with to love Francis as much as I did. I recall at least one person who mentioned they disliked Francis in general, but enjoyed my portrayal; this made me incredibly happy, and I'm so glad I've managed to stick with Francis throughout all these years.

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{Ciel}The first real roleplay forum I feel like I joined was Manor of Fate (although Jen might recall meeting me at a slightly earlier date at a different forum as Matthew). All of the muses I was interested in were already taken, but I really wanted to join MoF, so I decided to take on a new muse. I looked through the open muses, and saw that Monaco was open. I did a bit of research on her character and when I saw her design, I think I instantly fell in love. I adore characters with glasses, and her braid is wonderful; as well as the fact that she's canonly even shorter than Liechtenstein. She is quite stunning, and I admired the intellectual feel she emitted. She was also a rarer character (particularly for being a woman in Hetalia), and I wanted -- again -- to show the fandom how great this underappreciated character could be. I really have a soft spot for the underdogs, haha!

I have a tendency to focus on a point of my own personality/character and give it to a muse, and them emphasize it to define the particular character. With Ciel, it was the more logical/analytic side of myself, and the love for reading/gossip/card games. Writing posts for her were fairly interesting, as they took on a completely different aspect of roleplaying by thinking critically, rather than thinking with the heart -- as Francis often does. The contrast was intriguing. I remain to this day proud of taking on Ciel when I did, as well as being one of the very few Monaco roleplayers around in the circle of our forums.

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{Carmen}I took Carmen here on TND quite quickly after I was accepted as Francis. I desired another muse, and I really wanted to try a nyotalia character; I wanted more female characters, and I wanted to try out nyo!Spain because I absolutely adored her design. Her hair is gorgeous, hnnhg. The thing is about nyos is that I thought them to be completely different than the originals, taking on their own character -- Carmen isn't exactly the best example of my attempt to show this as she's fairly similar to Antonio's general personality, but... The personality traits from myself that I gave Carmen was her nagging and need to mother the ones close to her. I often worry about my friends, but I think it fits Carmen fairly well. She's pretty motherly, but I also wanted to give her the badass side of Spain. Carmen can be rather terrifying when she wants to be, and although the joke has died out, I did enjoy the crotch punching gag while it had still been going. She's protective, passionate, and not afraid to show it. It was also nice to have a perceptive character who tended to act more oblivious.

 

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{Sera}To be honest, Sera is one of my muses that I'm most proud of. She started as one of those "sadistic bitch" sort of Mary Sue OCs when I first apped for her here on TND, and she somewhat remains one, but she has changed. I don't feel as embarrassed when thinking back on the shitty history I gave her. Her ambitions and goals have evolved over the last two years, and she has now managed to become a mafia boss in her own right. I also enjoyed the idea of a cunning, dangerous woman who shouldn't be messed with, and I suppose I wanted to contrast the usual Italy-ness people gave her, despite being a nyo. And again, the physical design helped -- but I love most designs of the Hetalia characters.

Sera, frankly, is a badass. She is incredibly capable, again to the point to where she could be considered a Mary Sue. She is skilled, adept at what she does, but she tends to have more emotional weaknesses than physical. Her personality is rather twisted, as her main identifying point has become that she is a sadist. I think she enjoys other people's pain because she's had to go through so much in her childhood. I would like to say that this version of Sera is exclusive to TND like Mini's version of Kasem, but honestly I'm not sure that's the case. Of course it depends, but Sera is most certainly manipulative and uses people for her own benefit, which leads me to the traits of myself I bestowed her: manipulative possessive and sadistic desires, wanting to purposely mislead people, cat-like. These are considered negative usually, and although many people do dislike Sera, I do love her. I can take all of my "bad" aspects and direct them into the form of Sera Russo, who even though people may hate or be afraid of, is beautiful and an outlet to permit me to balance my personality out and not feel as guilty (as ironic as that might seem). I am an extremely possessive and envious person, and painting Sera as a badass character who shares the same traits makes me feel better. I also like to lower people's expectations of myself before surprising them. Overall, Sera is one of my favorites and I'm glad I took her on; I hope she'll continue to develop as time goes on.

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{Victoria}Victoria is the one who really cinched the difference between nyos and "genderbends" for me. I was tired of seeing people repeatedly portraying nyo!England as the worst version of England in the fandom, but with boobs. Besides being incredible cissexist, it pissed me off to no end that there were only horrible portrayals. I had actually been intending to take nyo!South Korea, but I changed my reservation when the topic of bad nyo!Englands came up in the cbox, most spurred by the staff members at the time. A few -- I think it was Captain and Misso? -- had said they had never seen a quality nyo!England, and doubted there could ever be one. Of course, I wanted to prove them wrong, and similar to how I fell in love with Francis, I adopted Victoria as a muse.

I ended up making her a prosecuting attorney as a foil for Icy's version of Amelia, who was a defense attorney -- this all being based after Ace Attorney, which Amelia as Phoenix and Victoria as Edgeworth. My personal interest in law transferred over to Victoria nicely. Besides wanting to contrast Victoria against the typical Arthur (and hoping I could meet Mini's standards), I tried very hard to get the blunt and sarcastic side of England. Although Victoria has tact, she doesn't like to dawdle. I also wanted to make her character one who could be openly sexual and shut down people's judgments. All of the previous traits mentioned are the ones I chose to give to Victoria. I also liked the idea of her advocating social justice issues.

Needless to say, I was overjoyed when the staff accepted Victoria; but it was their commentary that made me the happiest. Speaking honestly, I have re-read the note written with her acceptance several times. I was proud to be able to show the staff a new side of nyo!England, one that not many others had explored. It's definitely partly thanks to what was written with my app being accepted that I've stuck with Victoria for all of this time.

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{Zoran}I took up Zoran purely for the rest of the muns of the other Balkans -- specifically Icy, Bul, Genni, Kos, and then of course Worldie and Misso. The interactions I had had with a Serbia before were... interesting. Regardless, I had wanted to have a sort of obnoxious character who loved to party and snarky, but was quite intelligent. The idea mostly came from the character of Tony Stark/Iron Man (but with a little Denmark thrown in), with Zoran essentially being a poor version. I thought it was fairly amusing that Zoran could be considered a genius, but still be dirt poor and just barely getting by.

I'm afraid my app didn't entirely do Zoran justice when I first completed it, as this was an entirely new muse and one of my first Hetalia OCs. But I really liked the plots I had come up with with Bul and Genni, Icy, and of course Asu's beautiful muse of Yao. It was a lot of fun, but I mostly had stuck around with Zoran for Bul/Genni/Icy/Joo and when 3/4 were gone, so were a lot of my plots. As a result, I ended up dropping -- although I'm eager to try to take him back at some point in the future. 

It's also a lot of fun to play with him in BGO, especially with Asu's muse. They got along really well, but man, the relationship between Zoran and Nicoleta always gets me. Platonic relationships are extremely underappreciated, but it's great to be able to show some of this affection between these two.

As time went on, I started coming up with transgender headcanons, and I really wanted to have one of my more main muses be genderqueer. Zoran was perfect for this, and I love the idea; I would like to be able to further expand on it at some point in the distant future. Zoran in heels. Unf.

Zoran is super fun to write for, and I enjoy his brash sort of tone. He's just as blunt as Victoria, and probably ten times rougher. I miss him a lot! I'll never be able to portray Serbia as brilliantly as Worldie's Slavica, but I greatly admire her!!

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{Lovino}Lovino is another heavily misunderstood character in the fandom, and I also took him under my wing in a similar fashion to Francis and Victoria. I began roleplaying as him in a private rp, and I fell in love with him as it went on. He's a pessimist to the extreme, and very insecure. I emphasized with these traits as well, and wanted to continue to explore what his personality is like when you start to go deeper and how he interacted with the people he truly cared about. I had planned to take him on Sins Not Tragedies, but that fell through. I will also never be able to ever understand Lovino like Roma does, but it's a lot of fun trying.

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{Alfred}Alfred is another one of my favorites to play. I am the most comfortable with U.S. history (hmm, I wonder why), and I definitely know how the government of America works better than other nations. Alfred's bubbly and cheerful personality is wonderful, and he's a lovely darling. I started working with him more while fooling around in BGO, but I quickly wanted to actually try roleplaying him -- which I began on Who is Dead. His personality was the most fun to write on his application, and I like exploring the more insecure parts of him, and inspecting the inner workings. It's also really cool adding in his desire for freedom and independence in, despite being a pretty affectionate guy. I took him on BiTD as well when it updated, and I loved the special abilities I gave him. Alfred is so precious, an adorable child who must be protected. He has good intentions!

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{Elizaveta}Eli is a fairly new muse too, in comparison to the rest. I really, really wanted to have a genderqueer character and portray them on a forum, which I began on Long Live Ignorance. I loved the set-up I had there with both Jen and Worldie, but I ended up falling into a period of inactivity and haven't visited since (Eli/Iso, I'm so sorry!!). But I just adore the idea of Eli changing identity from male to female varying on the day, putting up his hair or putting it down as it changes. I also like the headcanon that she prefers the name Eli in most cases, as it's typically gender neutral, and that Gilbert (or someone else who is fairly close to him) will always unfailingly call her by the correct name and use the correct pronouns because they can tell. Eli is also one of the most prominent female characters in the Hetalia fandom, and I greatly admire his strength that people portray in fanart.

[Asunara Wisdom]

SPOILER: Click to show

{Vash}I took him up in 2011, when a friend of mine hosted an RP called "Big Brother Does Not Approve." That RP ended up pretty long, and you can guess that I picked him. I had never played him before, but I thought he was a funny character, so I tried him. At the time, I was mostly playing Belarus and Taiwan. And then I found out I really liked playing him. That RP was dramatic enough to entice me... though I feel guilty that he died in the very first RP that I played him in. I think what really hooked me in was his relationship with Lili. My own sibling relationship is never quite as nice or idealistic, and so it was nice to have an outlet to write out a functional sibling relationship. What was interesting, though, was even if their sibling relationship definitely is admirable, it isn't all sunshine and rainbows, and there is tension, especially in Lili's search for independence. I really could empathize on Vash's point of view of wanting full control and wanting to protect the people he cares about. In those days, he was much more caring, a dash of cynical, and a little ball of fury. His existence at the time, and his characterization really, depended on me roleplaying with a Lili. I feel bad that I killed him in that first RP oops. I think he died because of a chandelier. Then he haunted Alfred to the ends of the Earth and that was bad.

Then came Hetaquest v.1. I didn't have a Lili at the time and damn it, Vash really wasn't that spectacular. I was very much a confused person because it was my first time on Proboards and I had no Lili. I wrote out the character, but then he sucked in practice. I didn't know a Vash without a Lili. I had to work on making him a bit more of a snark, a bit more greedy, a bit more distinct, a bit more his own person. He really wasn't his own person without a Lili oops. I am thankful for Worldie for putting up with my "HOW DOES THIS WORK" phase. I think my characterization was very weak there and I'm very grateful for Worldie's comments. I needed them. I needed to be told he'd be the kind of guy who would go on dates if he was paid. That he'd do things for his own accord. All that sweet stuff that make him the cheapo that he is today. I'm glad I was able to really build him as a person, not just as a side dish for a Lili. Though I still regret that I had him shot with his own gun and an Italy beat him up with a flagpole and stole all his money. That was really sad too. No wonder he's scared of being shot by his own gun now.

I have nothing to say for TND's conception RP, The Agency. I didn't play Vash at that time, but if you're interest, The Agency was a little thought I had after watching Skyfall, so I wrote it out on Tinierme. It did not involve MI6, but an international agent organization that considers itself a mercenary for world justice. Somewhat like Interpol? They weren't under the jurisdiction of any government, and were somewhat independent. I played Belarus at the time, and she was an awesome agent with a Denmark and Poland. My Poland was awesome. We were in the women's lavatory to brief something we saw suspicious, and then an enemy agent came in, so Poland and Belarus ended up having to pretend they were making out in the bathroom to have an excuse for Poland being in the women's lavatory.. and to conceal their identities. It was pretty chill. The original RP also involved Maximantics as well. And Maximantics exploded. That was chill.

I played him on another forum I started with a friend. I don't know if most of you remember Miura, but I was a co-admin for Miura and our friend Ivy's board, Hetacademy. I was mostly playing Taiwan on there since Taiwan was still my main. We had a really good Asian family dynamic on that board, lots of drama with the family members reuniting at the academy. I also played Germania there. But then I took on Vash as an afterthought, because why not? I hadn't played him for about a year or half a year after Hetaquest disappeared into the horizon. Too bad that place died before I could play him.

And then, Tomorrow Never Dies happened. Vash has most certainly grown since I started playing him. His characterization has shifted since the beginning as well. He really got fleshed out here, and I am very glad for it. I made him an Agent, because why not. Funny thing is, I had a thought of making him Lawless and go commit bank fraud, but then Kyosai's amazing Iain just blew me away. I think it was the haggis cannon that really hooked me in. So Vash became an agent, and damn it's been an adventure. I made him serious about his job, but conflicted about it. He's very much a peace kind of guy. Neutral. He's not the kind of person you would expect to be a hero for justice kind of person. But he's very dutiful, and I think that's what makes him good for the job. I see Vash as loyal enough to whoever he chooses to place his loyalty, plus he's skilled. I just happen to really like that he isn't the smoothest James Bond out there. He's probably one of the most capable agents in terms of marksmanship, but in terms of being able to woo the lawless with a martini shaken not stirred? He's horrible. And that's always fun to play with.

TND put my muse to the test, really. I explored more into the different sides of Swiss culture, got more into the French and Italian parts, really got more into it. My year in Germany really helped me with this, and it makes me pretty happy when I'm able to incorporate German into a post (though I have yet to figure out how to write Swiss German ffff), and Vash really has surprised me. That whole thing with Aoife surprised me, and that thread that we really should finish just wow. Didn't know you had it in you, Vash. I never shipped Vash with anyone before that ffff. AND JE ME SOUVIENS. That's one of my most memorable threads. I never thought to see this "French" side of Vash before either, and Amy, that really hurt ;A;

Vash is getting some exploration in TN and would have (if it becomes alive again) some more in Hollywood. I really hope to get some more done in Hollywood. I want to get more into that French side... I'll say thanks to some of my favorite characters though. Misso's Lili is one of the awesomest Lilis I have ever had. And then Vash's friendship with Donald is amazing, his tension with Aoife is welcomed, and Mona's Francis just wow never expected these things.

I'm glad I'm able to really explore him and he's pretty flexible with every AU he's been put in. He's fun to beat up, I admit, but I'll give you some closure in this AU eventually, Schätzli <333

I'll write the others I swear ffff--