Why did you choose to roleplay your characters(s)?

((It's because you secretly are Turkey, Tarik))

France: I wanted to play him originally because the other France roleplayer on the other site I was on was pretty horrid, and since I loved France as a character already I wanted to scrub her memory from my mind. Since I've been playing the silly fool for a year now though I can't help but love him more and more. I don't know much historically but as far as character goes, I like to hope I'm pretty decent at it...

Russia: I've not technically roleplayed him I suppose, since I refuse to LARP, but I did cosplay him and have a great time. I chose Russia to better suit my body type... and severely enjoyed creeping on my new friends when I did so. >D

Japan: The first character I ever roleplayed, I chose him because he was a 'safe bet' to me at the time. Quiet, shy, reserved- figured it was a pretty good chance to dip my toe into fandom, since I'd not ever written fic or roleplayed before that. And I was right, because here I am now way too deep into the fandom to get out, haha. ((Also I apologize if I ever respon to when you're trying to talk to the Japan on here... old habits die hard, I've been playing him for far too long xD)

Canada: I'm Canadian, and sometimes can be pretty similar to Matthew myself. uwu;; Plus AmeCan with my girlfriend is perfect since she's American too~ ahahaha Also man screw the fandom's opinion of him because wowww no. There is a small section I stick to for Canada characterization simply because the majority of other places I find him just.... terrible.

Why Japan?

I've been wanting to play him for a long time, but he's often one of the first few to go. At least in my experience. Or there is a Taiwan/China/Korea/random asian nation that just loves to pair them up with Japan and I don't want to disappoint them?

Personally, I feel Kiku leans more towards short flings and one night stands, or even... dare I say it, Friends with Benefits. He has his 2D characters to keep him company, during work hours and without, so why should he be thriving for a real relationship? I think this attitude also reflects a lot of problems in Japanese society today, and the increase in 'parasite' singles that the country is suffering from. Japanese women want a lot from their men! The Big Three are, Good Education, Good Height and Good Pay. With such high standards women are waiting until later to get married, and often marry older men. And on some level it makes sense. A lot of women want a man that can support them and their spending habits so that they can be a mother at home. And that's because of the fact that Japanese society encourages woman to stay home from work! They marry older men because they have better pay, by default. Although this is changing, and this change in itself is causing a lot of problems...

I went off on a bit of a rant there. But I guess that leads to the third point of why I want to roleplay Kiku. His language, culture and history is what I've been studying for the past three years. It's both the passion and bane of my life! I also lived there for a year, so I feel I should put my knowledge to use. That isn't to say that I idolise the culture however. I actually find a lot of it frustrating and unbelievably cruel and heartbreaking. And what we think of as Japanese culture is a sub-culture, not the be all and end all of the country.

I hope to be able to accurately portray the complexity that is Japan. I recently read an article that claimed Japan is boring, and that there is nothing to learn from the country. And on a level I found myself agreeing. When a country has to promote it's subculture for Soft Power you are witnessing a severe identity crisis in the highest sectors of government. And that trickles down. Japan isn't extraordinary, and it is in fact a little off putting in it's homogeneity and strict social rules.

That said, I do like Kiku and his quirks. And I would hope some of the stigma his people feel towards foreigners would have eroded due to his exposure to a lot of different nations who are essentially distilled versions of their people. He has had to deal with them for a long time, even during his 'isolation.' Therefore I'd hope he is more forgiving of other nations than his people - although not everyone - are of other nationalities.

But yeah. xD That's my long winded reason? Which I guess doesn't contain a concrete reason!

I quite like his humour too...

((I feel the need to add that these comments do not cover the entirety of Japanese society, and that I've only highlighted some of the trends in Japanese society. I am also not suggesting that any other country is without sin, it's just that I mainly know about Japan's dirty laundry due to studying the country.

There are a lot of good and bad things about Japan, as there are with any country. I just felt the need to highlight some of the darker aspects in my explanation as to why I picked Japan. ))

Norway: I've roleplayed a lot of Hetalia characters but it's my first time portraying him. I chose Norway because I like what I've studied about it in History, my fiancé was born in Bergen and lately I've been having a lot of contact with Norwegians.
And because I'm not happy with Norway's portrail in most RPs and fanfics I read, he's either too cold or too girly and needy, and I just can't see him like this, not if you consider what Himaruya gave us. He even tries to be funny sometimes (like the Nordic Five song, the extract where he tells Iceland to call him big sister after he refuses to call him big brother).

So even though I hadn't tried anything with him before, I decided to give it a try and show people how I see him.
And I've been to Bergen last summer, I fell in love with the city and people there, and they were nothing like I had imagined. When voicing this to Kasper, he showed me a text that says something like "Norwegians are like cocunuts", and it's basically the summary of my experience with them, once you get through that hard shell, they're really sweet and nice.

Personally, I have nothing similar to Norway. I'm talkative, loud and messy, but I think it's easier for me to portray someone who's the complete oposite, you know?


TL;DR I chose Norway because we're nothing alike.

Oh hey, I haven't posted on this thread yet...

Hm... well, I have a sort of love-hate affair with Iran. One day I started thinking about how she'd interact with Hetalia-ized nations as it were, because Hetalia is pretty Eurocentric... In my mind, Iran was always a she, even before I saw the work of the lovely and talented artist behind Ask-Iran! I knew a fair bit about Iranian history and I thought I could make her convincing and interesting. And personality-wise she's pretty much my polar opposite! I'm an introvert and pretty quiet and Shireen really isn't! So perhaps it's a little bit of an outlet for my hidden/buried inner extrovert. And the Does Not Play Well With Others characters are a bit of a challenge for me to handle! I don't want to step on anyone's toes!

America- RP'ed him once for a RevWar RP which was fun, but extremely short-lived as my England ghosted on me :/ I liked making a very thoughtful teenage America who'd actually done his homework on why he was leaving.

Poland- I haven't RP'ed Poland with anyone else yet but I've been doing some serious thinking and am interested in doing so... the only problem is that I take a few issues with Canonical!Poland, at least when it comes to the pink and the dresses thing. I can accept that he has a killer eye for design and can pull off the occasional salmon dress-shirt, and I can accept that he might've occasionally been forced to wear dresses as humiliation by conquering powers (and might've even pretended he liked it to get them to stop), but the constant shipping with Liet annoys me a bit. >.<