[mod post] Another Hello

[youkofujima.livejournal.com]

Hello, everyone, this is your community moderator.[Poll #1217657][Poll #1217657]

And in case you're wondering, the human names of the nations are:

Turkey=Sadiq Adnan

Prussia=Gilbert Beilschmidt (aka: Gil)

Canada=Matthew Williams (also, his bear's name is Kumajirou)

Sealand=Peter Kirkland (nickname: Sea-kun)

Belarus=Natalia (I can't find her last name)

America=Alfred F. Jones (aka: Al)

UK=Arthur Kirkland (nickname: Iggy Iggy)

Germany=Ludwig (family name unknown)

Japan=Honda Kiku (or, in the west, Kiku Honda)

Italy (north)=Feliciano Vargas (nickname: Veneziano)

Italy (south)=Lovino Vargas (nickname: Romano)

Austria=Roderich Edelstein

Hungary=Elizabeth Héderváry

Spain=Antonio Fernandez Carriedo (nickname: Oyabun)

France=Francis Bonnefoy (nickname: Oniichan)

Switzerland=Vash Zwingli

Greece=Heracles Karpusi

Egypt=Gupta Muhammad Hassan

Russia=Ivan Braginsky

Lithuania=Toris Lolintis (thanks to herbalriver)

Estonia=the closest I got was "Edward"

Lativa=Raivis Galante

Poland=Feliks Łukasiewicz

China=Wong Yao (Yao Wong in the west.  Nickname: Nii-Nii/Aniki)

Korea=Im Yun Soo

Finland=Tino Väinämöinen

Sweden=Bernard Oxenstierna (nickname: Su-san)

Sweden and Finland's dog=Hana-tamago

For nations that don't have human names, their names are made to sound like nicknames.  For instance, Hong Kong is currently known as Hon-kun or Hon-tan.  Taiwan is Tai-chan, Cuba is Qba, etc...

If you have any questions or concerns, please leave a comment or send me an LJ message!

Comments

[aphelion-orion.livejournal.com]

I really don't think we should start using the human names. It's so much more fun to refer to the characters by country name, because there's this moment of dissociation where you really think about the georgraphical country of France humping the US of A, and that always amuses the hell out of me.

I recognize the concerns, but I think there is some oversensitive political correctness at work here. I think if you look hard enough, people can take anything the wrong way. If I say I like piroshki, somebody out there will definitely take this to mean that I am a communist come to infiltrate their country and ruin the economy, and I've known people who react as if you were insulting/making fun of them when you tell them you think their country is lovely.

Long comment short, people will get their panties in a wad over anything. Hetalia was created for fun and lulz, not for everyone to cower in fear of incurring some nutso nationalist's wrath.

We can friendslock the community, but that would be a sad day.

[youkofujima.livejournal.com]

*nods* I see what you mean, and it seems like a majority of the members in the community feel that way, too, because of the hilarious implications of the actual nations interacting as opposed to a representative character from each nation, which is what the human names do--it separates the character from the nation.

It really is true that people will get offended by anything, even if we try to make it politically correct--which Hetalia really isn't to begin with.

I really hope that we won't have to go that far, and so far there doesn't seem to be a necessity to do so.

[aphelion-orion.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm really glad that most people agree, because Hetalia was about making fun of stereotypes to begin with - and for the countries I know, those I've been to, those whose people I met... I have to say that many of these stereotypes are, to some degree, hilariously correct.

Yeah, unfortunately. But I assume stumbling upon Hetalia by accident is nigh impossible - you probably won't run across it if you aren't a 4channer (heck, I didn't know it existed until a friend pimped the fandom to me), and if you're a 4channer and get offended at something like that... that's pretty damn funny. XD

On a totally unrelated note... completely independently, I more or less started my own Hetalia a few months back, before I knew this fandom existed. In the Guilty Gear game, all characters have a different nationality, and a friend and I took great pleasure in referring to them by country name and photoshopping maps together. Like this (http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj111/h3d0n1st1c/graceofgod.png). I am insanely amused by this coincidence.