The-Hetalia-RP is a roleplay for, well, Hetalia. Hosted on DeviantART, like its original source work, it centers around a group of anthropomorphized nations and their strange adventures.
Its main plot is set in present day, in the seemingly normal world. And, had one not spent a lot of time roleplaying in the group, the world would seem bleakly normal. With elements of "Alternate History", and points in the roleplay's plot that are based off of current real life-history, it's not a surprise that to most, it seems like your average, basic RP. However it actually has a very heavy undertone of adventure, primarily in the form of magical realism.
With plots generally centric on the more active of RP-ers, fate usually ends up in the hands of England, Japan, America,Seychelles, and Prussia. Of course, with 27 different characters currently, plots and plot-causers vary greatly, and just because it felt as if one character was focused on today, doesn't mean they will be tomorrow.
Character tropes:
England - Arthur Kirkland
A snarky, eccentric young man with a very hot and cold personality, England is a wizard who starts out as very bad with his magic. After receiving a magical pendant however, Arthur becomes much more capable and powerful, though this gift comes with consequences. Due to his rather impulsive nature with magic, the Briton must learn how to control both his powers and temperament, as when paired, the two often lead to great disaster.
A main component of the storyline revolves around the antics caused by his powers, directly or indirectly, and the Character Development which ensues.
Tropes that apply to England:
- Amazing Freaking Grace: As per his ringtone in the manga, this is also used for the roleplay.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: To Scotland and Ireland.
- Berserk Button: Making jokes about his height is bound to land you a punch in the face.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: The king of them. In fact, Prussia's nickname for England is "Eyebrows" in the RP.
- He apparently grew them out to appear older. Of course the side effect of this is being copiously made fun of, it seems as though he would rather that than be treated like a teenager still.
- Black Magic: His specialty, while he can use both Black and White, he appears to prefer the former.
- British Stuffiness: Subverted, while he can act rather stuffy and snobbish at times, due to his Hair-Trigger Temper, foul mouth, and stranger beliefs, he manages to balance out his quirks and attitude. In the beginning of the roleplay, he started out much more like this though.
- Cassandra Truth: England can see magical creatures and use magic, but it takes quite the plenty of incidents before anyone actually starts to BELIEVE in magic.
- Cloak and Dagger: The best spy of the bunch.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Played with - while initially comig off as the Only Sane Man, upon further analysis it is revealed that not only is he Not So Above It All, but even so far down that he is very often the cause of it all.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Swears like a sailor, fittingly.
- Cool Sword: During the incident with the Entropy, Arthur gains one that is compatible with his pendant.
- Consummate Liar: A very convincing liar, as he usually goes towards truth twisting tactics.
- Covert Pervert: Despite being a self-declared gentleman, is the most sexually active character in the roleplay with a good share of kinks.
- Cuteness Proximity: With his fairies and other magical friends.
- This also very much extends to young children, and is his main reason for wanting to have one.
- Deadpan Snarker: So very much.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Starts out as a very cold and rigidly polite sort of character, however over the year or so he's melted into a much more personable fellow. May even count as a Sugar-and-Ice Personality, as with his friends he has become very quirky and eccentric, however around newcomers or people he simply doesn't like, he throws himself back into the deep-freeze.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: When he's not being tsundere, is generally being this.
- Morality Pet: America. Tends to get much bitchier and downright mean when not with him for long amounts of time.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Has a strong attachement to darker things, to the point of freaking people out sometimes.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Has defrosted somewhat from his outright tsundere beginnings, into this with his friends.
- The Unfavorite: Amongst his brothers.
- When She Smiles: While he is prone to smirking and grinning often enough, his true, genuine smile is a much more rare, pretty sight to see.
Prussia - Gilbert Beilschmidt
The loud, egocentric lancer to England, Prussia seems to be too full of himself to do anything useful. However, despite his non-nation standing, Prussia is definitely more than capable of holding his own.
While Prussia's story seems a bit more ordinary (maybe) than the rest, it's far from being dull.
Much of Prussia's development involves overcoming his cocky attitude, as well as opening his heart a little to his friends and girlfriend eventually.
Tropes that apply to Prussia:
- Attention Whore: "Her thoughts should be on me, 100% of the time, NO EXCEPTIONS! In fact, everyone's really should be, I don't care how selfish it sounds."
- Badass Normal: Considering the situations he's been thrown into, it's pretty impressive he's come out nearly unscathed.
- Basement-Dweller: Before he moved in with Seychelles, he had a room in Germany's basement.
- Beneath the Mask: Acts like an arrogant jerk 90% of the time, but can occasionally slip into a kinder, more stoic persona under the right amount of pressure.
- Narcissist: His dream fantasy is to have sex with himself.
America - Alfred F. Jones
Tropes that apply to America:
- Attention Whore: Maybe not as bad as Prussia, but still pretty bad.
- Berserk Button: Calling America fat is a surefire way to get yourself punched in the face.
- As is hitting on England. Or injuring him for that matter.
- Big Eater: The king of big eating, unhealthily at that. He never gets fat though, despite how his friends may occaisionally tease him about it.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: He HAS to be the hero.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Not as bad as England's, but he definitely has a potty mouth.
- Large Ham: America is extremely energetic and loud, being a bit of an attention whore.
- Manchild: Very idealistic, and has a lot of childish interests. And he doesn't exactly have the most refined sense of humor for that matter.
The-Hetalia-RP contains examples of:
- A Boy and His X: An Antarctica and her Sonic (the name of a dog, not the actual character Sonic), a Prussia and his Gilbird, and an Ireland and his Daniel.
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Like the Arthurian sword it originated from, Excalibur.
- Academy of Adventure: The academy the Kirkland brothers attended in the Other Realm when they were teenagers and hit their powers, for only a couple years.
- Also some of the Gakuen Hetalia alternate universe roleplays are set up as such.
- Affectionate Parody: Both of its original source work AND modern history itself. Not to mention all of the different plots parodying things found in fairytales to things found in Victorian Romance novels, the roleplay incoorporates a lot of parodies and shout outs.
- All Love Is Unrequited: Averted, oh so averted. More or less all love is mercilessly and laughably EXTREMELY requited...for about a day. And then, never mentioned again. Ever.
- Played straight with England's crush on America.. until, it wasn't.
- Was Averted, then played straight, then averted again with Prussia and Seychelles.
- All There in the Manual: As this is a DeviantART Play By Post Game, with many of the players owning different accounts for their characters, their are certain plot points with each character that would be impossible to understand had you not read their DA Journal, or looked in their comments. The "manual" is very useful at times, as it often serves as a tool for the RP.
- All Myths Are True: Played with. While it seems that a lot of myths turn out to be true, only to certain degrees, such as vampires being unable to tolerate the sun, or fairytales coming true.
- Hinted at with Arthur and the legend of King Arthur.
- Ambiguously Christian: Prussia seems to be secretly quite devout to some Christian denomination. Which one exactly, is the ambiguity. Being that he was a Teutonic Knight in his past, this is unsurprising.
- Anachronic Order: The entires 'Neighbors' universe.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Wizards apparently scoff at the idea of aliens. Especially England.
- Artistic License – Physics: Usually irrelevant due to supernatural forces being at work, but also surprisingly subverted in that the Laws of Thermodynamics are maintained by stating that magic is fueled by an external power source, creepily, human soul energy. Hence the reason so many wizards seem to inhabit Earth rather than any other planet, closer to their power source.
- Attractive Bent-Gender: Romano (or "Romana" as she was renamed) and Norway, when England used a spell to bend their genders.
- Also England himself has the capacity to turn heads while in convincing drag.
- Art Shift: Demonstrated with Icons and Emoticons, or simply words, everyone does this at some point or another.
- Ascended Extra: Over half of the cast... scratch that, three-fourths are very much this. With a few Original Characters, and some who have only been mentioned in the series by character design or NAME, the amount of extras in the roleplay greatly outnumbers the amount of main characters.
- Funnily enough the two actual main characters of Hetalia aren't yet filled. That's right, no Germany or Italy.
- Anguished Declarationof Love: Subverted in Adventure to Atlantis, in which Antarctica TRIES to give this to England when the submarine was sinking, but England never really caught it.
- Battle Couple: What America and England appear to be turning into as of the late.
- Beach Episode: Subverted, numerous times, in that it's been suggested at least 5 or 6 times, but is ALWAYS diverted by England somehow, due to a certain problem of his.
- Played Straight however when the gang is taken to vacation at Seychelles's house and he is forced to face his fears ... and nearly ends up drowning.
- Bedmate Reveal: Once, with Japan and England. Cue Antarctica walking in and a major Not What It Looks Like (and it really wasn't) moment and Antarctica freaking out.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Between.... everyone, sooner or later.
- Primarily between Antarctica and England, America and England, Prussia and Seychelles, and depending how you interpret it, possibly Prussia and England.
- Beta Couple: When America and England finally end up getting together, despite their own personality quirks and numerous amount of petty arguments, they prove to be the most stable relationship within the RP. Therefore, they serve as this to many of the budding couples within the RP, particularly Seychelles and Prussia.
- However the scenario seems to switch since the latter couple settled down, depending on the roleplay.
- Better as Friends: Prussia and England initially decided this, before becoming enemies.
- Betty and Veronica: Antarctica and America for England, respectively.
- Haiti and Prussia for Seychelles
- Both Veronicas win.
- Berserk Button: If you value your life..DON'T. CALL. AMERICA. FAT.
- On that note, if you EVER hurt England, prepare to be in a world of pain, ''bitch.''
- Really, don't press ANY of America's berserk buttons. It's just, not going to go well.
- And don't you DARE insult England's height, whatever you do.
- On that note, if you EVER hurt England, prepare to be in a world of pain, ''bitch.''
- Beware the Nice Ones: Seychelles has her moments.
- Japan, too.
- Big Applesauce: Where much of the plot takes place after England moves in with America. Beforehand, it was in London.
- Big Brother Mentor: America was this to Antarctica when she was growing up.
- As was England to America.
- France wanted to be this to England when he was a child.
- Big Damn Hero: America tries.
- And yet, it often ends up England. Oh sweet irony.
- Everyone pretty much gets a BDH moment, per plot point.
- Big Eater: America, most obviously.
- China appears to be something of this as well.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: England, oh dear England. First off, he has 4 big brothers who beat the hell out of him one minute, and are all lovey-dovey the next, and a little one who enjoys annoying him and treating him like crap.
- Then when you take all of England's former colonies into account... England is the perfect in-RP-universe example of this trope.
- It seems Prussia's Big, Screwed-Up Family would also be a good example as well.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: England, and at least half of his relatives.
- Big "SHUT UP!": England and Romano are both prone to yelling this (unsurprisingly considering their character types), and funnily enough, often at each other.
- Bizarro Episode:She Locks Her Home! (A Sherlock Holmes parody) deserves a special mention, as that entire roleplay was just BLAM turned up to eleven with major Out Of Character Moments for Seychelles, England, and Antarctica, complete with super-crack-RP!elements and This Is Your Premise on Drugs. Did we mention, turned up to eleven? But don't worry, it was All Just a Dream anyway.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: ...Google Translate, anyone?
- This is later Averted later on as the roleplayers themselves begin to get more experienced.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: In the Gakuen!Punk AU..America: C'moooon. Please? With sugar and ice cream and mustaches on top?England: First off, the mustaches are completely repulsive, and secondly, no! You wouldn't understand the story anyway!! You don't even know what it's about!!
- Break the Cutie: How England ended up developing some of his more sociopathic tendencies.
- Prussia when Holy Roman Empire was killed.
- America for a while during the Nega plot, however he gets better.
- The Bus Came Back: For Prussia, who for a few months took a leave of absence per the RPer's lack of interest in him. However, eventually he returned, and quickly re-established himself as a regular character, if not more so than before.
- Butt-Monkey: For how "awesome" Prussia is, he certainly does get some rather butt monkey-ish treatment by the other characters. Generally of his own fault, but nevertheless.
- Later on Wales takes up this role, when Prussia starts standing up for himself a bit more.
- Camp Straight: Prussia, a little bit.
- Wales as well.
- Cassandra Truth: England, in the beginning. Eventually after enough magical plots occur, the majority of the cast come to believe him.
- [[Irony Funnily enough]], America to Canada about their parents and their powers. However Canada eventually comes around.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: Considering it's original material, this is unsurprising.
- However, this is slightly played down, as the number of females IS quite comparable to the number of males, as the female characters have nearly filled up. Not equal, but not fully outnumbered either.
- Funnily enough, all of the ACTUAL roleplayers are girls.
- Caretaker Reversal: When America and England share their first kiss as a couple, England is unfortunately sick, and the reason America was over in the first place was to take care of him. A timeskip later and this time America is sick in the care of England.
- The Casanova: Prussia, at first.
- Subverted when he settles down with Seychelles.
- Also, France.
- The Cast Show Off:
- As Japan's RPer is an artist, the character's drawing skills have been shown off from time to time.
- Celtic Mythology: Has a bunch.
- Corner of Woe: While every character is an offender of this (due to the fact it has its own ICON on DeviantArt), England (with TWO icons) is the most common offender.
- Cute, but Cacophonic: America.
- Cute Bruiser: Antarctica may look all cutesy and sweet, but get on the bad side of her temper and you may just find yourself with a smashed in head.
- Cuteness Proximity: Prussia pretty much 'melts' around young children.
- England as well, with both kids and cute creatures, magical or otherwise.
- Cultural Cross-Reference: Due to the fact it's a story-line revolving around personified countries, these sort of references are thrown in from time to time from the different RP-ers, as an example of actually doing the research.
- Drives Like Crazy: Romano. He drives crazy good, but still.
- England isn't a bad driver on a regular basis, but has apparently had enough instances to have reached the maximum amount of points on his liscense before having it suspended.
- Japan while usually a good driver, once drove them off a cliff.
- The Fair Folk: Wizards can certainly come off that way at times.
- Even nations have their moments.
- Fantastic Racism: Wizards towards things that aren't wizards. While the newer generation of wizards seems to be rather tolerant, the older generations seem to be a lot more Elitist. In character it was stated that, "In the Other Realm no one really cares about sexuality, skin color, or gender, they're too busy quibbling about species to have time for more kinds of prejudice."
- Foreign Sounding Gibberish: America's take on languages that aren't English.
- They seem to have drifted more into each other's rivals than honest to God enemies for each other.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: Happened between England and Japan after a quarrel in which the former forgot it was his and the latter's national anniversary.
- Functional Magic: Rule Magic, Formulaic Magic, and Functional Magic. It's strongly implied that the incantations mainly serve to focus the thoughts of the wizard on a specific spell and aren't strictly necessary. The same goes for wand usage, they merely serve as a tool to channel powers and are only necessary with stronger spells.
- Gender Bender: Happens to Romano and Norway as payment for pissing off England.
- And later to England and France when America wishes it for his own reasons.
- Hammerspace: Alfred's pockets in his bomber jacket, he can apparently fit multiple hamburgers in there. Candy as well.
- Historical In-Joke: Considering the main cast are anthropomorphized nations, this happens often.
- Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Anything and everything involving England's pendant all seems to be forming into this.
- Apparently England's brain when the cast got trapped inside it.
- Karma Houdini: England flip-flops around with this trope. While sometimes he manages to get off easily despite having been rather cruel unnecessairly, other times karma practically pounds him into the ground for minor offenses.
- Little Miss Badass: Greenland has ventured into this territory on multiple accounts, the most prominent being her rescue efforts during the first part of the United Nations plot.
- Lonely at the Top: England.
- America also showed shades of this sometimes, before he became closer to Prussia.
- Love Dodecahedron: England was in love with America, but America rejected him one time too many so he decided it was time to move on and begin persuing someone else, meeting Antarctica and developing feelings for her as America realizes he likes England, but while England is on the rocks about dating Antarctica, he starts hooking up with Romano on the side who is in love with Spain. As America comes around to confess to England he had just gotten with Ana, Ana viewing America as something of a father figure at the time. And how.
- And after this is resolved, then comes along Prussia and Seychelles, who begin to fall each other when they were turned into children but due to the universe being reset Prussia forgets of his feelings for Seychelles, except Seychelles still remembers as she has (at the time unrevealed) magical powers. However when she starts to get over Prussia she begins to fall for Haiti, and just as she gets with Haiti, Prussia's memory is jogged so he remembers his feelings for her.
- Furthermore, to complicate things further, Prussia and England used to date, which lead to their falling out. Once America and England and Prussia and Seychelles have all become OfficialCouples, and Prussia and America best friends, this can make for some... awkward situations.
- And after this is resolved, then comes along Prussia and Seychelles, who begin to fall each other when they were turned into children but due to the universe being reset Prussia forgets of his feelings for Seychelles, except Seychelles still remembers as she has (at the time unrevealed) magical powers. However when she starts to get over Prussia she begins to fall for Haiti, and just as she gets with Haiti, Prussia's memory is jogged so he remembers his feelings for her.
- Magic A Is Magic A: The magic in the rp works this way.
- Mayfly–December Romance: Prussia and Seychelles. Seychelles being a little over two hundred years old, and Prussia having been born around the time of Jesus Christ.
- To a lesser extent, America and England. America being over 400, and England being near 2000.
- Also England and Antarctica.
- Middle Child Syndrome: Northern Ireland and Wales both seem to suffer this, and they are indeed the middle children. Wales to a greater extent.
- Also Canada, despite him only being the younger in a pair of twins.
- Minovsky Physics: How magic is explained.
- Mirror World / Mirror Universe: The Mirror World, obviously.
- The Shadow world is almost a better example than the Mirror World though, as the Mirror World has several differences and ambiguities, whereas the Shadow world is meant to be an exact invert of our Earth.
- Moment Killer: Prussia attempts to invoke this when England is in the hospital between America and England, simply to be an ass.
- England has also played this role to Prussia and Seychelles a few times when he's caught them being lovey dovey.
- America has done this several times, completely on accident however.
- Really 700 Years Old: As the way countries age isn't explicitly stated in Hetalia: Axis Powers, it's simply assumed that through the use of magical realism every nation is pretty much like this.
- Which makes it difficult when the subject of age is brought up, characters generally have to make a distinction of whether they are referring to the their physical or historical age.
- Reincarnation Romance: As of the Void/Protector plot, this is POSSIBLY the case for America and England. This is only a speculation however, as different entities seem to have different ideas on the nature of the Void Magician and Protector.
- Comic-Book Time: Roleplaying Time: While occasionally averted, this is only to be expected in a Roleplay in which time-skips are necessary, and plots that should only last a couple hours carry over to half a day do to "BRB-ing" and other real world events.
- Not to mention, since many of the RP-ers are from different states, what may be correct timing to one person could be a few hours off to another.
- Acting for Two: R Ping For Two: England, Prussia, and Scotland are all done by the same player.
- As were Northern Ireland and Antractice.
- Greenland, Haiti, and Ireland.
- Romano, Romania, and Wales.
- Japan, Klaus, and Sakura.
- Tanabata: One of the festivals Japan had them celebrate.
- Team Mom: When not the cause of the trouble, England tries to take this role for the group. His success.... varies.
- Technobabble: Any explanation of scientific magic usually falls into this territory to some degree.
- Time Travel: One of England's Void powers.
- Time travel IS possible with just regular magic, however it is an extremely difficult and powerful spell to perform.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted. Wales is forced to see one by England after his [[Hikikomori self-isolation]] becomes troubling.
- England has also mentioned in passing that he has tried seeing them, but they often assume he is delusional due to his "magical friends".
- The Sociopath: While England is not a straight example, during the latter half of his teenage years he was. He still carries some traits from this however, and a large part of his Character Development involves overcoming them.
- Trapped in Another World: This happens to England in the Mirrorland plot. And to Wales, again with Mirrorland.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: England can unknowningly alter reality to some degree, being the legendary Void magician. This is played for drama after he finds out and can't control his powers.