how are so many people in the. well. i guess GilbertSphere of tumblr get so smart and all? so many of you understand gilbert and just overall historical hetalia so well and i want to post my takes on his character but i'm an uneducated hick so i feel like anything i say's just wrong on every level. and everyone's gonna throw hammers at me. i just checked out iron kingdom from my library and i'm hoping it'll help me understand him and the history better. i used to consider myself a history buff and a pretty avid reader yet compared to everyone on here i feel borderline illiterate. there's so much i just don't know and have never even heard of. i absolutely love history and historical hetalia especially but i don't know where to even start with it :(
oh dearest anon, I am taking you gently by the hands. the "hivemind" of Pru fans here are not any smarter than anyone else, and you are not dumber than anyone else. we like to play with barbies here, and we like to read a lot so we can play with our barbies in interesting ways. there is no Wrong way to play with barbies, as long as you're approaching it in good faith. everything is a learning opportunity, and we are all in some kind of learning process, and we like to take that learning process and use it in interpretative ways - everyone has their own process, and their own interpretation. my interpretation differs from other people in our loose circle of colleagues, and theirs are different from mine, and that's great! we very much operate on a sense of "yes, and," in our encouragement of each other, as opposed to saying that something is Wrong. (there are of course things that are discouraged, like deliberate/bad faith misinterpretation or the promotion of potentially tasteless or harmful ideas, but in my opinion there is always room for discussion and development). that you are Interested In Learning means that you're already part of the process! what I recommend is finding the Thing that makes your brain go brrrrr and digging into that line of inquiry, and then using what you learn to inform your interpretation; playing with barbies is first and foremost about Having Fun, not strictly literal academic historical repetition of information :)
Not everyone in the "Gilbert Hivemind" (this is a joke term for the most part, to be clear) is also part of the Nu Historical Hetalia subfandom, and frankly not everyone in the Historical Hetalia fandom is good at the critical analysis aspect of reading all the books and journals we love so dearly. Please don't be intimidated by a bunch of geeks who read all the time I PROMISE no one here is a real authority on anything.
That said! If you want to Do Historical Fiction, definitely take the Tolkien approach. Like Proosh said, it will be so much better to follow your interests and research the things you already like, and then use that to your advantage. Just because there's like 5 people circle jerking over tanks and big guns doesn't mean YOU have to in order to be taken seriously by fellow fans. All you really need is a general overview of an area's history and geography, which you can get from wikipedia, and then you're free to go hog wild studying the culinary practices of a single town in the 18th century or the contributions to online gaming done by a group from such and such county in whatever nation you choose. So on and so forth.
And if you're ever really off the mark, then you're wrong and you grow from that. Oh well. The sooner you make peace with the idea of Being Wrong About Something and not taking it personally or connecting it to your self worth, the better time you'll have playing dollies with us. And if someone does try to skin you alive for an honest mistake or the result of not knowing a topic as deeply as they do, just block them. there is no reason to get into any kind of serious arguments with other Hetalia fans on the internet.
All of the above is extremely true as someone who is a more casual hetalia fan, I get along well with the more historical part of the gilbert sphere despite that being less of my focus so I won't add in any more reassurances, I haven't had any problems and I'm sure you won't either.
I just want to focus my advice on if you're curious and ready to dive in but the prospect of digesting a huge 800 page book, retaining all that information no matter how tiny the detail down to names, places, dates and then applying it confidently to creative work with no mistakes feels overwhelming and daunting.
The reason why it feels impossible is that it is impossible.
You're not gonna be able to read the iron kingdom cover to cover and then come away fully armed with a 100% success in committing it all to memory and an encyclopedic understanding of the entire 700+ years it covers.
It's not realistic, so let's just do away with that immediately. Throw that out. FREE yourself of your pressure. At best you will read this cover to cover and just get a general 50-70% of the content gist that will degrade with time. Even more realistically, you'll probably read like 40 pages, grow mentally exhausted, go to the table of contents or the index, look up things you're kinda curious about, read a few paragraphs that you like and then this book gathers dust on your shelf but you shit out like one or two amazing creative pieces that hit the mark without getting too indepth, AND THAT'S FINE.
THAT'S NORMAL. It's not always so realistic to continuously read books that are hundreds of pages long and I frankly do not feel that a lot of people even in the gilbert fandom have even accomplished it. We all know a lot about A LITTLE. All of us have our Niches that we are autisticly overly informed in. I don't think there's a single gilbert fan that can be quizzed on 900 years of history and answer in depth. Just not realistic. Just not possible. We all have things that we should probably now more about, probably intend to research more into and just haven't yet.
What you need to do is the following if it so pleases you to do so:
Pick a SINGLE era, event, etc a SINGLE moment of time that you find extremely interesting and that you have MOTIVATION to study for
Don't immediately go for the 500 page book, that is too big of a barrier of entry. Start with Wikipedia, start with a google, start with reading small contained passages.
SKIM WHAT YOU FIND BORING. It DOESN'T MATTER. SKIM. Anything boring, DON'T READ. If you make this a job, you WILL NEVER ever FIND JOY in it. SKIM. Religious nonsense not your thing? FUCK IT. economic lecture killing you? YOU DON'T SEE IT. Read only what you care about.
Open a google doc and start an active study Outline. Link sources, highlight dates, names, anything you think is important. When you have a headcanon about it, leave yourself a little comment about that headcanon so you in the future can connect it directly to the source that sparked it.
Creating an outline helps you be an active reader and put a bit more thought into it. Here is an example of one of my own WIP outlines if you need a more concrete example of how you can use an outline to guide your research
If it's not fun, don't read!! If it's stressful for you in that moment of titme, Don't research!! You are 1000000% allowed to have fun just vibing and doing unattached work, you are allowed to stop it and pick it up at any time!
Avoid sensitive topics if you are unwilling to do the research for it, be humble in your learning and know when a topic is out of your depth and you may not be ready to write or draw it. Like doom said, have the courage to be wrong and the humility to be corrected. 99% of the time, people won't bother you if you aren't touching sensitive topics with no knowledge.
I will end this saying: I regret all thee times I was too anxious and pressured by this feeling of "I MUST KNOW EVERYTHING!!" to engage in fandom in an involved way. I used to post art with no caption because I was tired of defending myself for every drawing. In the end the only person that can free you to do what you find fun is you, so I hope OP can find peace of mind to engage in the fandom in a way that is satisfying and stress free for them without feeling pressured in any direction.
I swear- there is a panel out there with Romano working and Germany and Prussia observing him and commenting on how hard working he is but he's not wearing any shoes so Germany and Prussia decide to gift him some new shoes😭👞✨
I've been trying to find this panel again but with no luck😔
I knew exactly what comic you were talking about; it's from the 2011 Christmas special. It's one of my favourite canon Romano moments! Here it is:
Unfortunately though, they don't gift him new shoes :(
The Italian national song is really out here giving: naaah hehe, I say let it die! Let it die! Let it die! Let it shrivel up and- come on! Who's with me? Huh?🤪
I just learned that Italy and Poland both mention each other in their national anthems oml😭🇮🇹❤️🇵🇱
Idk why but I suddenly got the urge to sit down and listen to different countries national anthems, then I noticed that poland mentions Italy in their song, and Italy mentions Poland😔
Apologies for the super late answer!
Yes! It's very sweet <3 I'm a huge fan of Feli and Feliks being close, whether platonic or something more. I like to call their duo Feli²
From what I understand, the Polish anthem references Italy because the author, Józef Wybicki, who helped found the Polish Legion in the Cisalpine Republic, was staying in Reggio Emilia with the legion and penned the song for them. Hence, the "From Italy to Poland" lyric:
March! March, Dabrowski!
March from Italy to Poland!
Under your command
We shall reach our land.
In turn, the Italian anthem references Poland to acknowledge their shared struggle for independence and nationhood, especially in the face of a common enemy- Austria.
Comparing how we're referenced in their anthem vs. how we reference them, I think the Italian stanza is quite brutal in comparison:
Already the Austrian eagle
has lost its plumes.
The blood of Italy,
The Polish blood,
It drank, with the Cossacks,
But it burned its heart.
Sorry for the slightly awkward translation, I tried
Essentially, what this means is that Austria (and Russia, "the cossacks") drank Italian and Polish blood (which it spilled through violence and repression) only for that blood to burn them. Hell yeah
Anyways. I know there's a plaque in Reggio Emilia that commemorates the creation of the Polish anthem. It's not too far, so if I ever visit, I'd love to see it!
Hi i am going to EAT YOUR ARTSTYLE?!!? I LOVE THE REALISTIC BUT STILL OBVIOUSLY A DRAWING WAY YOU DRAW PEOPEL?!?! AUAUUGH . FLIPS . flips over and dies like a buge
STAWPPP you're too nice omg thank you 😭 dbwjfhsx I really appreciate it augh
[Unflips you and puts you in a patch of grass like a buge]
Following your post on nation birth, do you have more headcanons for other nations?
I received this ask after my post on François' birth, and I struggled to find an answer because I honestly don't really have any other concrete headcanons! My idea for François was directly inspired by my time living in Southern France near the Camargue region. Visiting the local nature reserves, beaches and wetlands, etc. Etc. I was struck with this image of François emerging from the waters there, and the idea's stuck with me ever since. When it comes to other nations, especially the itabros, I don't have anything concrete yet! But this post got me thinking, so hopefully I can wittle down a headcanon I'm satisfied with and make a separate post for them someday.
I feel like nation-people can come about in lots of different ways. I personally love the idea of them forming out of nature in some way - emerging from dirt, the sea, etc. Etc. Generally, I struggle to imagine nations giving birth regardless of their sex, so I don't usually go down the nation-pregnancy-route. At least in my regular nationverse headcanons.
There's also the interesting case of the Nikoniko republic. In canon he was a regular Japanese middle-schooler who became a personification, and then went back to being a regular human/citizen. Though it seems the NNR has now been revived (and is the grandson of the OG nikoniko!)
I think this brings up the possibility of other personifications being former mortals. Idk who else I would apply this sort of origin to, but it's certainly interesting and has a lot of potential for interesting storytelling/arcs.
Anyways I know this is a nothingburger answer, but I'll hopefully come back to this question with a more proper and interesting response! Thank you for the ask- it's got me thinking ❤️
