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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

{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.