we the hetalia fandom mostly used to see the roman empire as kind of a zeus-type figure (always someone's dad, or grandpa, or ex-husband, or dom, or top, or sire of heroes, etc.) but i'm really happy to see that that has changed in recent years. nowadays, mx. china hetalia wang yao himself proudly cheers on + pushes the much more accurate and interesting agenda of his long distance worstie being more like a dionysus:
wilderness + instinct + intoxication + madness + any kind of loving you can handle! ...but not too much, might destroy yourself. know when to quit.
because rome just is an empire—and everyone wants him socratically, platonically, bloodily, aspirationally, carnally, biblically, or any combination thereof.
but china KNOWS a man like that, the emperor type, can't be contained or satisfied by just anyone. paterfamilias needs partners, rivals, concubines, heirs, protectorates, and exiles. china has been through this rodeo before; he's a courtier through and through.
whereas japan, birthplace of hetalia & its author, needed more time to widen/scratch up/change its lens when it comes to nation personification, geopolitics, history, and the internet. himaruya, much like the hetalia fandom + japan + the rest of the internet + rest of the world has MATURED.
there is a REASON that europe was elaborated on first in the canon, but those closer to japan region-wise such as ASEAN had to come much later. there's a reason south korea couldn't be in the anime back in the day. old-timey euro hetalia fans + NA/EU animanga fans in general will never understand the new characters totally because they are rebirths, iterations, reinventions of the core concept.
y'all just try to see more europe, more antiquity, in a japanese guy's multimedia franchise. but the author has grown: can more sensitively perceive and portray the closer neighbors now. whereas, newer fans might find the old material too profane, too far from their regional lens. and they'd be right.
hetalia is a multi-generational and truly international franchise. europeans + those with european heritage FEEL like they know it best because they "found it first," but that's only because himaruya was not yet ready to approach topics closer to his home back then.
so, the longer this goes on, the more "meta" and "genre fiction-aware" the hetalia franchise must get. historihet is just one branch on the tree of this series—one that fragments close neighbors and obscures faraway places.
that is the way the author keeps sanity: no death of the author, no death of the text, no death of the fandom. rebirth. change. adaptation. being passed onto other hands. a legacy.
IN CONCLUSION:
we're fine. some of us are still extremely hurt and have dug their heels in; they need exile + IRL. some are already happy; they pray and stay where they are. others are still trying to find themselves in hetalia—blaspheme or bastardize or make their own; those need time and less scrutiny/pity/critique from NA/EU fans or just hetalia veterans in general.