HETALIA PHILIPPINES (My Version)
Recently gone back to my roots of animes that I enjoy watching, and that is Hetalia. Been a fan back then and I was just like any other fan does, being a cringe fan of making my OC Philippines too OOC for its taste. Not to mention when I saw the official design of Philippines, I was excited. But growing up and mature enough, the official design of Philippines is fair to me. I can see why Hima decides to make Philippines a male, since ironically, Philippines is named after King Philip II of Spain (true), selfie stick with his phone on is accurate, as well as having an endangered specie, the Tarsier. But tbh, I want to make my version of Philippines but as a woman. I mean… we have few countries represented as female, so why not have more of them?
Some notes I did regarding my design
- I made Philippines a mixture of Austronesian and Negritos (because etymology speaking, Negritos arrived first before the migration of Austronesian from Taiwan)
- She wears a very well-known Baro’t Saya as a national attire (although historically speaking it evolves, while Barong Tagalog remains the same), what she wears is the typical Baro (Camisa, with inner top), and Saya (skirt with Tapis on it)
- She added the necklace with the image of Dr. Jose Rizal (as he is the nat’l hero of the Philippines) and a cross (due to the majority being Roman Catholic, thnx to Spain)
- She got her tattoos from Apo Wang Od because she wanted to go back to her original roots.
- In the right is the evolution of the Philippines, from the unnamed and fragmented islands to a single archipelago/ nation (my pet peeves when it comes to the evolution of the nation is how they maintained the same hair, which isn’t accurate considering how the evolution of fashion has been prominent)
- I consider naming her Maria Clara, but decided not to cause she is meant to be an ideal Filipina, and there are Filipino heroines that were not tackled (ex. Melchora Aquino, Gabriela Silang, Gregoria de Jesus), though I added Ma. just in case.
- Ma-l is the name coming from the Chinese records, according to the Laguna Copperplate, which is believed to be around 900 AD, or older than that.
- Her old surname has an addition of 'Carriedo', due to the time she is under Spain's rule, but she dropped the name down at the end of the Philippine Revolution, and changed it to Dimasalang.
- She has lots of wounds coming from colonisation to WWII, and she somehow heals some parts with the help of an albularyo, although she retains a huge scar on her abdomen.
- Of course, she kept her hair short, although she loves adding extensions if she needs to.
- Since pre-colonial times is a nameless archipelago, there are some kingdoms established, although they are NOT unified, like the Kingdom of Tondo, Sultanates of Sulu, Sugbu, Madjas-as, Tawalisi, Namayan, etc. so Pre-Colonial Philippines were pretty called differently, depending on who she is with. This is before the Spanish Colonization that she is given a name 'Filipinas'
