hetalia | [mod post] Another Hello

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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I for one took interest in Hetalia because it was like a car crash. Quote the Producers: "It was shocking, outrageous, insulting... and I loved every minute of it!" It was countries boinking, nations romping about! World War II and its many harshnesses and cruelties reduced to a hilarious feast of shallow, perplexing depictions: it's a hilarious take on world history that is as offensive as it was disturbingly accurate. If there wasn't some truth to it, why would we be so tickled?

The core point of it isn't to be conservative or child-friendly; on the contrary, Hetalia fires the OTHER way, soldiers, it fires in the direction of "holy shit... but that's kind of true, somehow!" And the reason it doesn't isn't because it has generic blond bishies fumbling about, and certainly not because of the character design (Kitayume has talent, but there's something to be said about the fact that it takes practice to tell the nations apart) but because they are national personifications. If you remove the nation labels, you're one step closer to making it just a boring and senseless story of good-looking but otherwise common, run-of-the-mill hot men, fooling around, not to mention you're closer to missing the whole point.

I would have to add, anyway, that unless someone is going to get arrested for it, I put little care to censoring myself. There's way too much sensitivity going around these days, so it will come a point where the narrow scope of what is "unoffensive" will get so small, 99% of the content in the world will be tacitly banned, because goodness, you don't want to irk someone's fragile heart, now, do you?

I reinstate: this is a fandom about national personifications going at it. Don't try to be politically correct about it, because, in essence, Hetalia is politically incorrect.

I'll admit in a moment of self-humiliation that when I read some of the things in Hetalia, what drew me to it was the feeling of "oh my good lord, you are right, we do act like that!" And yes, Hetalia is, as mentioned in comments, a manga that is based on the nations and it's really the idea that these are nations personified rather than representatives of the nations at work. From what I have heard, that really is the reason why a lot of fans have flocked to this fandom.

(And really, some of the art is very sketchy and hard to tell them apart, yes. So many blonds!)

People can/do/and will get offended by everything no matter where they're from, and I wanted not only to respect the wishes of members who were afraid of consequences but also to see if there were members here who might already in a way feel a bit sensitive about the nations' names being used and would rather do the separation of characters-from-nations method of using the human names.

By no means am I saying that the intention of trying to avoid offending people is ignoble. I just said that it is simply impractical and potentially troublesome.

My suggestion is that you don't make a rule about it. The more strict or narrow a fandom becomes, the less fun it becomes. It would not be different to anime/manga/comic fandoms where wanking commences over what an ambiguously named character should be written as, in fiction. ("Koukyuu, Koukyou? Kokyo?" "ZOMG BETCH NO THAT'S NOT HOW IT GOES LOLOLOL.") Best is to caution people on their own and, if any individual offends, let it be a problem between the individual and the offended party. You might as well caution people that they wouldn't be offended if they didn't come looking for it, since nobody forces them to read or see the material.

It also tends to open doors to wanting more details, it seems. *sighs* Can't make them all happy...

Oh my, you're telling me. I remember a while ago there was even an infamous wank about...colours...of certain things. And it seems that the general consensus is to do it by means of free will, no strict rules, and proceed with caution, which is more than a lot friendlier than I was expecting this poll to turn out, to say the truth.

I guess if someone who's not a Hetalia fan does come in here starting things, I would have to ask the members to notify me immediately so that I can handle the problem as quickly as I can.

I think you shouldn't worry yourself too terribly. First of all, you're doing a good job here. (♥) You simply want to do the perfect job, which is what everyone does, but in this sort of case you are guaranteed that there will always be some troublemaker, or some rightfully sensitive individual showing up. One way or another, unless they threaten with a bomb or with guns, you're on the safe zone where you can afford to ignore them or remind them that they can just walk the other way and their lives will go on, just as ours will. It's a matter of tolerance.

I would have to agree on one thing: I've found the Hetalia community to be, all in all, pleasant and friendly. I remember I was surprised when some threads on 4chan turned out to be incredibly civile (considering the lawless and often brash nature of any 4chan conversation.) I think it should be a reassurance that we're actually dealing with mature people, who know how to do things with care and caution, so you don't have to worry about them too terribly. After all, consider this demographic fact: anyone who gets the Hetalia humor almost certainly knows their history, or is a history fan. That means they're: A. knowledgeable, and B. tolerant enough that they're able to take history humorously. These are very traits most fandoms would ENVY on their members.

[mod post] Another Hello

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