Genderswapped Nations is an Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfic written by Fanfiction.Net user Pandapika. Its first chapter was uploaded to the website on February 5th, 2012, and continued onward for eighteen chapters since then until its nineteenth chapter, an author's note relaying information to the readers about the future of the project, was uploaded on August 19th, 2012. The fanfiction can be found here.[1]
In short, the plot centers around a girl named Ariana Kirkland, an American girl who is kidnapped from her home by mysterious men. She soon finds out that she, along with the seven other girls who were kidnapped, is a gender bend of the countries, though as young children instead of adults. It is also revealed that Prussia is the one responsible for this incident, as he wants to become a country again by blackmailing the countries whose gender bends he's kidnapped into making him an official country again. From there on, the plot follows Ariana and the other gender bends as they attempt to thwart Prussia's plans for world domination however they can.
A sequel fanfiction, titled Triple Swap, was created as a tie-in/sequel to this fanfiction, but it has yet to be finished and has not been updated since December 19th, 2012 and is unlikely to be finished anytime soon. Evidently, the author of Genderswapped Nations has said that the fanfiction will be reworked now that she has grown to be a better writer, but this has not officially been confirmed and no straightforward remake has been posted as of yet.
Genderswapped Nations contains examples of:
- Aborted Arc: The author admits in the final author's note that there was supposed to be an storyline in the beginning where Prussia attempts to take over Europe but is stopped by the swaps that was quickly scrapped. Even the author admitted that this plot would have been silly.
- A Day in the Limelight: Chapter 5 is meant to be this for Allison, Chapter 7 is this for Iscah, and Chapter 12 is supposed to be one for Mattie.
- Alliterative Title: The naming theme of the chapters, which results in some...strange names (most notably "Kidnappers and Kids", "Hamburgers and Hurt", "Ice Cream and Ill-Humor", "Belarus and Blankets", "Aliens and Automobiles", and "Six-Thirty and Swords").
- Alpha Bitch: For a majority of the story, Francisca is portrayed to be one, although she quickly becomes somewhat less-so after she and Ariana get kidnapped for a second time.
- Anti-Climax: And how. Essentially, Prudence has a Heel–Face Turn, and Kierra helps her find Prussia so she can tell him how much of a douche he's being and tell him to stop. And surprisingly, Prussia accepts this and gives up right then and there. Prussia, whose main character trait is being egocentric, ends the conflict because he admits quite uncharacteristically that he's a douche. Everything just dissolves after that, meaning that there was never a great final fight between Prussia or Prudence and any of the swaps. It just sort of...dissolved.
- Artistic License – Physics: HOW IN GOD'S NAME CAN YOU TRIP OVER A COUCH!?
- Back from the Dead: Allison is stabbed and killed right at the beginning of the final battle and brought back to life by Ariana, though the black magic she uses causes a curse to affect all of the swaps. If any of them were to die after that, every person in their home country would keel over and die.
- Big Bad: Prussia, who, as Word of God states in the author's note and as he exposits in Chapter 17—the aptly named "Stabbing and Stories"—was bent on conquering the world at first but later changed his mind and decided that he only wanted to be a country again.
- Butt-Monkey: Mattie is often put at the butt of every joke, to the point where almost every other line in Chapter 12 was a jab at how forgettable and invisible she is. She was randomly assaulted numerous times in Chapter 7, skipped during Sealand's run to give all of the genderbends ice cream in Chapter 6, whapped in the violently in the face with a stick in Chapter 13, among other things.
- Cloudcuckoolander:
- Felicity is one. And apprently, she's so much of one that, according to the narration, she could be brainwashed by even the lowest frequency mind control wave.
- In addition, Allison, whose entire life is dominated primarily by food and 'coolness'.
- Creator Provincialism: Evidently, the gender bends of personified countries all hail from the United States and were simply brainwashed into speaking the accents their counterparts have.
- Distress Ball: Francisca and Ariana are kidnapped out of nowhere just so that Kameron, Nathaniel, Robynne, and Elliot can be introduced into the plot, and also so the author could write a chapter where Mattie and Allison have to embark on a journey to save them.
- Dull Surprise: Mattie, in this exchange from Chapter 18:[A piercing shriek sounds.]Felicity: "Oh no! Is somebody hurt?Mattie: "Probably."
- Flanderization: Happens to every character, whether or not they're canon.
- Most glaring of all of the Flanderizations is Romano, however, as it is shown that he can be scared away from Germany's house by a scarecrow dressed up as France and coerced to run errands for people if bribed with pizza.
- Allison and Prussia having an argument consisting of Allison saying "The cool hero says yes!" and Prussia rebutting "The awesome me says no!", which goes to show just how Flanderized both characters have become.
- Flat Character: Most all of the characters can be described with one word or character trait, but the character who especially falls victim to this is Nathaniel, whose only character trait is an action, which is to stalk and scare Iscah for no funny or plot-relevant reason. It just sort of...happens.
- The Generic Guy: Elliot becomes this because apparently 'the author didn't pay attention to the episodes with Hungary in them' and slowly becomes a generic forced love interest for Robynne, who in and of herself is pretty generic.
- The Ghost: Oddly enough, Yiesha—China's swap—turns into this by the end, save for a few useless lines that could have easily been said by anyone else. Hell, even Mattie, whose characterizing trait is her forgetableness, has a more prominent and memorable role than Yiesha.
- Heel–Face Turn: Prudence/Gillian has one at the end, which essentially ends the conflict right there because Prussia suddenly has one too and begins rambling on about how stupid the conflict was to begin with.
- Karma Houdini: Prudence, who nearly killed a thirteen-year-old girl with her bare hands and attempted to have a group of twelve other teens brutally murdered by hired warriors and assassins and killed Allison, a twelve year old girl, with no remorse. Despite all of this,however, she managed to get off scott-free because she cried over it all and claimed that Prussia made her do it. There is no proof whatsoever that Prussia forced her to commit any crimes against her will; in fact, she was displayed to be quite pleased with her actions on numerous occasions and made her enjoyment of her evil tendencies quite clear. Even in the sequel story, she was shown to be friends with the gender swaps, with the most comeuppance she gets being that she's rightfully despised by Robynne and yet openly trusted by everyone else, including Allison, who she killed.
- Allison, who essentially tortures and abuses and steals from Mattie throughout Chapter 12 and continues to do so until the end of the fic. Her only comeuppance is having to give Mattie's credit card back after she'd stolen it and used it to buy numerous plane tickets.
- Manchild: Evidently, America is one, as he childishly—and most OOC-ly—shouts 'NOT IT!' when the question of whose room the new gender swaps will be staying in arises at the end of Chapter 12.
- Motor Mouth:
- In the very first chapter, the author points out how unusual it is that Italy never said anything throughout the entire chapter due to how much of a Motor Mouth he is in canon. And, unsurprisingly, Felicity takes after him.
- Allison and America both fit into this trope, too. In fact, a lot of the time, the only difference between Allison and Felicity most of the time is in the dialect. Otherwise, they are the exact same character.
- Self-Insert Fic: This is revealed to be one in the author's note, where Pandapika admits that the story is based on a common fantasy she had of secretly being the gender bend of England.
- Retcon:
- Canada's gender bend's name was unceremoniously changed from Alexis to Mattie at the beginning of Chapter 5. The author originally claimed that this is because 'she forgot Canada's human name', but she later admitted that it was because she had no knowledge of what Canada's human name actually was and made up her name on the spot. Meanwhile, Prudence's name was changed in the context of the story from Prudence to Gillian in the very last chapter.
- Another retcon occurs when it is revealed at the end that Allison never needed her glasses, even though it was proven in Chapter 2 that Allison did need the glasses.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: "Now that I've traduced myself" is the one most commonly quoted, though there are numerous more egregious examples.
