YMMV / All He Ever Wanted

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Most of the characters are drawn directly from the Hetalia canon, but Italy has been in some ways promoted from The Ditz to the Psychopathic Manchild. His uselessness (from which the title of Hetalia comes) is transmuted into something a bit more Yandere.
  • Yantalia? Yanderitalia? Kowaitalia?
  • The authors also joke about "Basement Prussia" (the lovable loser of Hetalia canon) and "Bathroom Prussia" (the asshole that he appears as in AHEW).
• Die for Our Ship: More than one Hetalia fan considers the portrayal of the Japan/England couple as bashing. The fact that Puel is a well-known US/UK fanwriter does NOT help the fic's case.
  • America and England don't have a lovey-dovey relationship in the fic either. It's more that the portrayal of England and Japan's relationship comes off as so OoC to some readers (Particularly the part about Japan caring about England only as a pawn to further his personal agenda of world domination), they wonder if England and Japan were characterized like this mainly to show how horrible and unhealthy England/Japan would be. While deliberate drastic alterations of characters like this aren’t terribly uncommon in Hetalia fanfic, especially darker ones, well, the lack of even historical justification and the fic's premise being essentially "the world would have gone to hell if England and Japan had maintained their alliance" doesn't exactly help perceptions of that kind.
• Fridge Logic: Out of all the copious Kick the Dog the Nazis are infamous for, rape isn’t one of them; in fact, the Soviets and Japanese are more infamous for this. Though this did in fact happen (even if the victims were mostly Slavs and other “Untermensch”, all conquered races were victimized to an extent), it’s still not the one they’re most known for. If they wanted to make Prussia irredeemable, he could have stuck the girls in a gas chamber, flogged them constantly, had them be experimented on, worked them to exhaustion, or put them in an enclosed space to be burned alive, but for whatever reason the authors chose to make Prussia a rapist. Even if one accepts that Prussia is an almost comically irredeemable villain in this AU, and the many holes is historical research, one really has to question the decision to make him a rapist specifically, when rape is one of the most sensitive, difficult crimes any author can write about.
  • Also the main victims of the Nazi regime in terms of ethnicity were three groups; Jews, Slavs, and Roma. Hungary and Liechtenstein are none of these, and the latter is in fact ethnically German. There are even two female characters, Belarus and Ukraine, who are Slavic, so if a victim needed to be female one of them could have been used.
  • The characterization of England as the insane one and Japan as the Manipulative Bastard. Historically, England would be the more experienced in international 4D chess out of the two, and Imperial Japan OTL was infamous for being rather fanatical and impractical in their fanaticism.
• Memetic Mutation
  • Surrealism is not a joke.
  • Come quick! The sky is falling!
  • He's a fucking nazi.
  • And, well, the characterization of Italy...
• Mind Game Ship: Japan/England, Prussia/Hungary, and Italy/Germany.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Prussia crossed it in The Seventh Door, when he brings Hungary to the cell occupied by an already-captured Austria, and brutally tortures and rapes her while forcing a helpless Austria to watch, and twisting the knife even more by telling Austria that "it's for his benefit".
  • Hungary may have crossed it for some readers, losing the sympathy points from the first incident when she coaches Liechtenstein to become Prussia's lover alongside her, so they can get benefits from it. Yes, a rape victim teaches another into giving sexual pleasure to their common rapist. Others may consider it more of a mere survival strategy brought by the harsh circumstances both of them are caught in, or as much a Kick the Dog moment.
• Nightmare Fuel: Apparently, Switzerland's House.
• Squick: Prussia raping Liechtenstein. Uhm, no.
  • Double squick: Hungary, who ALSO was raped by Prussia, coaches poor Liechtenstein on how to make sure she gets something out of Prussia's attention... via sex. Yes, a rape victim trains another into giving sexual pleasure to their common rapist. Doesn't matter if there were some "reasons" behind that, it's still ridiculously cruel and contrived. (And Out of Character as well as offensive.)
• Tear Jerker: On several occasions.
  • Oscar Bait: Sometimes, the supposedly "heart rendering" moments come off as forced instead.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The 'verse tends to slide into this. When most (if not all) characters are either unlikable Jerkasss or brutally tortured, readers may not be sure who to root for at all. It doesn’t help that historical facts are often broken to suit the work’s dark and cynical tone, making it come across as needlessly cruel for no real reason.

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