#aph Celts

[roran01]

Wondering how much beef I can add

[republicofyolossia]

UK bros? Nah Celt bros lol

Some incoherent rambles on design below:

I like the shade used for Wales hair in the official art (though him being blond is a little disappointing) but I thought I'd try a brighter shade here to reference daffodils. Not sure I like it, and might try dirty blond in future?? Also I was worried about making him and Norn look identical, since their hairstyles are similar. I've decided to make Wales chubby/overweight and Norn more scrawny.

Ire having ginger hair and green eyes is a little cliché. Nothing inherently wrong with it, but I've had 12 years of looking at Ire OCs with identical hair and eyes. The shade of his hair, at least, is something different from MSpaint orange, so I'll take it.

I'm glad at least one brother has darker hair. It's a refreshing design, and I'm glad Scot is canon now and has hopefully killed pixiv!Scotland's popularity. I hate that dogshit OC. I find it funny that my old Scot OC was the shortest brother by far and canon Scot is the tallest. Nothing wrong with either interpretation! I just thought it was funny. His design also gives me Gordon the engine vibes which I also find amusing. I think his hairstyle's nice and makes him stand out a bit more.

I'm sorry but I will never interpret Norn as Eng's older brother. It makes no sense and there's no justification for it, so I'm gonna portray him as a teen, like I did with my old OC (about fifteen y/o or so physically). Not that I think this is the only way to portray him, I'm just not gonna make him an adult. Besides that, I kinda like his design.

Also I'm giving all of them freckles. With a lot of the HWS characters, I tend to err on the side of darker skin because skin tends to get darker the older you become because you've spent more years in the sun. Therefore the nations would probably have slightly darker skin than average. I don't think that these guys can tan (thought I've had English county OCs in the past with tans because British people can tan pretty dark sometimes), so a lot of freckles are the equivalent for them.

Don't repost/steal

[pvffinsdaisies]

the Anglo-Celtic Isles as song’s from Maisie Peter’s “the Good Witch”

(With little to no explanation) (featuring OCs)

THE GOOD WITCH: WALES

“When all I do is think about the past, and haunt a house nobody lives in, you wanna hear about it all, where do I start? Well, I guess when it kicks in.”

COMING OF AGE: IRELAND

“I wish I would’ve seen it sooner, why did it take me ages to say it? I wasn’t your cliché, no, this is my coming of age!”

WATCH: SCOTLAND

“You’re so bad (so bad!), you look better (what the fuck?) I fought it but I saw it and it sawed me right in half. You still get to me, but I still let you (yes I do!) you’re being a superstar and all I’ve got are victim cards and you’ve got every single thing you want, and I just watch.”

BODY BETTER: NORTHERN IRELAND

“Then I, I can’t help thinking that she’s got a better body, has she got a body better than mine? And I, I can help thinking when you touched it were you sorry, were you sorry like weren’t at the time? Loving you was easy, that’s why it hurts now, the worst way to love somebody’s to watch them love somebody else and it work out, now, I can’t help thinking that she’s got a better body, has she got a body better than mine?”

WANT YOU BACK: NORTHERN IRELAND

“So I know, that you did bad, but if one more person says it I might go mad. Yeah I know, it didn’t last, and what was cheap to you to me was all I had. The issue is, I know all of this and I, I still want you back.”

THE BAND AND I: ENGLAND

“It was Friday nights, it was video gold, oh it was shining lights, it was rock and roll. It was the band and I, on a 12 bed bus, it was making and messing it up! It was endless roads, in the same old boots, oh it was letting go of everything but you. It was the band and I, on a 12 bed bus, if we’re living the dream, I hope we never wake up.”

YOU’RE JUST A BOY (AND I’M KINDA THE MAN): CORNWALL

“I’m on a one-way trip to take over the world, you could’ve come but your head’s in the sand, what’s a girl gonna do when she’s in love with you, but you’re just a boy and I’m kinda the man. I’m on a one-way trip to take over the world, you could’ve come, babe, I held out my hand. Yeah it’s sad and it’s true, and I’m in love with you, but you’re just a boy and I’m kinda the man!”

LOST THE BREAKUP: IRELAND

“I know I’m obsessed and right now I might be a mess, but one day you’re gonna wake up, and OH SHIT! You lost the breakup. I’ll smile and you’ll have to face it, I’m the greatest love that you wasted, but by then I’ll be far away, and OH SHIT! You lost the breakup!”

WENDY: WALES

“You could take me to neverland, baby, we could live off of magic and maybes, but I know the girl that you want and it scares me, behind every lost boy there’s always a Wendy. So I’ll lock the windows and turn on the AC, you’ll throw your rocks and you’ll scream that you hate me, but it gets old being forever 20, and what about my wings? What about Wendy?”

RUN: SCOTLAND

“If a man says that he wants you in his life forever (run!) if he calls you up says he’s so in love and it’s been one week you better (run!) if your heart says broke and your friends say “don’t” it’s an r.i.p you better (run!) as fast as you can, take a quick sharp turn at the side of the man and make it done! If a man says that he wants you in his life forever, (run!)”

TWO WEEKS AGO: NORTHUMBRIA

“You were driving fast, I was holding back and I loved you babe but I bet you knew that. The song was true and the sky was black, god, I wish it was two weeks ago. When you said we’re like your mum and dad, knew you loved me babe, when you told me that, and the song was true and the sky was black, god, I wish it was two weeks ago.”

BSC: CORNWALL

“Broke me big time, it’s funny and im laughing baby, you think im alright, but im actually bloody motherfucking batshit crazy!”

THERAPY: IRELAND

“Now you’re gone, honey I can’t sleep, I’m just talking to your memory. I still love you, but you’re taking me from your arms back to therapy, therapy, oh Lord, I’m going back to therapy, therapy. You swore it’s somewhere I would never be, so how come you’re taking me from your arms back to therapy?”

THERE IT GOES: SCOTLAND

“The love we had was covered in snow, I had to let it go. The love we had was eating me whole, I had to send it home. Oh there it was, heaven knows, there it was, now there it goes.”

HISTORY OF MAN: NORTHUMBRIA

“I’ve seen it in the poems and the sands, I’ve pleaded with the powers and their plans, I’ve tried to rewrite it but I can’t, it’s the history of man. She stays up, he’s sleeping like a lamb, she begs him, he says he doesn’t understand, she loves him more than anyone ever has in the history, the history of man.”

[aphaskengland-bitter-tea-drinker]

[kaimaciel]

Portugal's different sides through fairs

The Roman (Braga Romana)

The medieval (Feira medieval de Óbidos)

The Templar (Festa Templária de Tomar)

The Moor (Feira medieval de Silves)

[ask-his-flower-and-her-bear]

Britannia sitting crosslegged by the fire probably chatting shit with gaul: making my favourite son blonde is saxon propaganda.

Gaul: but making him that dark a brunette makes him look roman

Brit: ... i have so much child support to collect on.

[alexafranny]

Me: *makes an OC* Me: What is typical for Brittany?  Friend: Ermines. Me: Ermines? Friend: Ya. Me:

That was stronger than me. Leonardo da Vinci - Lady with en ermine

[kochei0]

bonus for last post! close up + height reference lmao

[asking-gereng]

Have Arthur's brothers visited and seen any of the ghosts and/or seen anything weird?

Arthur: “No. And they’re not welcome. Not that they have any intent on talking to me so good.” 

[aurorawgrice]

APH - Ireland

[asitrita]

Personal rant

This is a personal rant about Spain’s history and some people’s interpertation of it, mostly regarding some of the “nations”, or “ethnic groups” that are sometimes considered Spain’s parents. If you think it can affect you personally, don’t continue reading.

I really do not understand people who consider Spain’s father figure anyone other than Rome. Like... literally, no one makes any sense other than Rome. I could buy Visigoth acting as Spain’s father figure, or as his “tutor”, and I could even understand (though in no way share) the idea of Castile and Aragon being Spain’s “parents”. Though, again, I would not share that hc either, because even if the current nation-estate of Spain is “younger” than the many different medieval kingdoms, the notion, the “idea”, the “identity” to some extent, of Spain is way older than any of those medieval kingdoms which, technically, were not nations nor modern estates either, so acting as if Spain came to be out of the blue in the 15th century, as if there had not been already a clear Spanish identity and notion of unity and nation prior the 15th/16th centuries is just... ignoring all the evidence. What I trully do not understand is when people have Al-Ándalus, Umayyad, or even Carthage, as Spain’s father figures. It is true that history can be interpreted in many different ways, more so when it comes to Hetalia, but there are some interpretations that... they just make no sense. Not from a historical point of view, at least. Guess you can have whatever headcanons you want, but historically speaking, they may make no sense whatsoever. And that is exactly the case with these interpretations. For Al-Ándalus and Umayyad the reason why it is utter nonsense for any of them to be Spain’s father figure is that they are literally everything Spain is not (and did not want to be). In the first years of our lives, until we become adults, we all build our identity against the others. Something similar happens with the different nations. They build their identity partially based on not being like the neighbour next door. We could say that Spain built itself against precisely these two guys up there, Al-Ándalus and Umayyad. One could think, “okay, but as we all know, in many cases, the first ones we try to build our identity against is our parents, so that could further emphasise the role of those two as Spain’s paternal figures”. Well, no, and here’s why. Maybe it all comes to what I understand as a father figure, but to me, in the case of nations, the father figure, or the “father” or “mother” of a nation should be the one the nation receives more influences from. It should be to some extent the “origin” of most, or a big significant part of the nation’s culture, identity, and overall, idiosyncrasy. Either that, or it should have left a very deep impact and long lasting effect in the character and identity of that nation. And what I mean is that the nation must have adopted transcedental aspects from that “father nation” that are now rooted deep in its character. Otherwise, a deep impact could be a traumatic event like a war that people from the nation have built their national pride upon, but that’s not what I mean. I mean that the nation has actively acquired, integrated, and assimilated, deep and transcendental elements and aspects of its “father nation” culture and identity, so the “father nation” identity has, to some extent, become the identity of the “new nation”. Examples of some of these transcedental elements could be religion (and overall, spirituality), sense of justice, moral values, or even lexicon related to abstract concepts and emotions such as love, passion, fear, desire, hate, regret, etc. So here’s the thing. Neither Al-Ándalus nor Umayyad did, in any way, affect Spain in this respect. Mind, I am not saying they didn’t leave any influence in Spain at all, what I am saying is that they did not have a transcedental influence in Spain’s identity. Or they did, but just in the opposite way. Spain takes its culture, society, values, and spirituality from Rome, and builds itself against Al-Ándalus and Umayyad (quite honestly, Spain’s relationship with these two is more similar to the “traumatic” event some nations have built their national pride upon I mentioned earlier than to any father-son type of relationship). If anything, they only helped to exacerbate Spain’s loyalty to its “indigenous hispanoroman” identity. Again, not saying they left no influence, for example, some architecture in southern Spain (though, tbh, it’s more like a couple buildings people visit while ignoring the hundreds of christians and roman buildings lol), some cities, some influences in the food and some traditional dishes, some new agricultural and destillation techniques, etc. And it is well known that up to 8% of the Spanish vocabulary is of Arab origin, even though, to be honest, much of that percentage are toponyms and half of the lexicon is no longer used in Spanish today (most people don’t even know half of these words, and some have their Latin counterpart). However, none of these influences affects Spain’s psique and identity to a transcendental level. Not only that, but the people who identified as Spaniards and all its old variants (derivatives of Latin’s hispanus/hispanicus) were the Northern Christian people, never the Muslims who lived in Al-Ándalus under Umayyad rule. It was northern Christians who talked about Spain, who considered Spain their “lost” nation, and who identified with a Spanish identity, not the people nor the rulers of Al-Ándalus (for a short time, Northern Christians would actually refer to Christians living under Muslim rule in Al-Andalus as Spaniards, to distinguish them from the Muslims). And in no way am I justifying the following, I’m just stating a fact, which is that Muslims were expelled. All of them. Which means that Spain, as a nation, as the people it represents, literally has almost no link whatsoever with the people of Al-Ándalus, Arabs, nor Muslims, other than its people, the “Spanish people” fought them for centuries. Obviously, they lived in the same piece of land, though borders were never an easy place to live in, they were not 24/7 killing each other (impossible to do that nonstop for almost 8 century), they often traded, and there were Christians living in Muslim territories who adopted some Arab or generally Middle Eastern/Oriental traditions and practices that they preserved even under Christian rule (they were called Moriscos), hence the influences. But these influences are so superficial and “materialistic”, they affected so little the Spanish way of understanding the world, that I trully think it is unrealistic to make any of these two Spain’s father figure. It is almost a bad joke when you get the Northern Kingdoms singing to Spain and identifying as Spanish, getting ripped of their representation and identity, and instead, associating this identity and representation (their identity and representation) to those who never identified as Spanish and fought those who did with the intention of conquering and subduing them. And I guess you could argue that most of “Spain” (the land) was under Muslim (Umayyad) control, but as I understand Hetalia, and modern states today, it is not about land, but about nations and ethnic groups, and the people they represent, and it just makes no sense to make Spain’s father figure neither Al-Ándalus nor Umayyad, because given history, they would have probably tried to kill Spain had they got the chance, and the same goes for Spain, as it certainly would try to kill them as well. Plus, friendly reminder that the muslim territory of Spain was, for the most part, independent from the Umayyad Empire, so even if members of the Umayyad dinasty ruled over Al-Ándalus, it was not part of its empire (again, for the most part, there was a short time it did belonged to the empire). Plus  Al-Ándalus was cut into pieces during the 11th century and the Arab “Umayyad” elite expelled from the Peninsula. I mean, neither the Umayyad dinasty nor Al-Ándalus lasted for 7 centuries. The Arab rulling elite (Umayyad) were expelled, and Al-Ándalus destroyed, by the end of the 11th century. So it is not true Spain received direct influence from these particular people for almost 800 years, that’s an extreme oversimplification of Medieval Spain, as Arab rule in part of Spain, as well as the existance of Al-Ándals, in reality, lasted for around 350 years, as opposed to Roman presence in Spain, which lasted for over 600 years, plus, they were never expelled and their identity completely permeated the indegenous inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula.

About Carthage... what can I say? This just makes no sense. It may not be as ironic (and almost offensive) as the other two choices, but in some way, it makes even less sense, if that’s even possible. Not much to say about this one, I just can’t even think of one thing Spain has inherited from this guy, can’t think of any influence from Carthaginean culture or whatever in Spain. The little I can think of slightly related to Carthage is actually Phoenitian so... I mean, Cartagena, in Murcia, is a great city, but... can anyone think of any significant influence, any significant link Spain as a nation, or Spaniards as an ethnic group, have with Carthage? I’m sure people from Murcia may come up with something but... in general, I really don’t think we have anything to do with Carthagineans, as much as I like Carthage. I’m sorry, but I trully can’t think of anything Spaniards, Hispanics, even Portuguese if you want (though I’m no expert on Portuguese history so I may be wrong on this one) have “inherited” from Carthage (guess you could link the Portuguese Empire based on trade with Carthage, but realistically speaking, there’s no historical corelation there either). I guess they may have introduced some new techniques and whatnot, but, really, that happens all the time, that does not affect the identity of a group nor their way of looking at the world greatly, unless it supposes a radical change in their way of life, which did not happen, since Carthage barelly controled some strategic cities. Yes, it got to the northern part of Spain, but did not have actual control over all that territory, and there was no cohesive rule nor anything I can think of... In any case, I’m no expert on Carthage either, but I trully cannot think of any Carthaginean influence in Spain at all. In conclusion, a nation’s “father figure” is the one that has, to some extent, “built the nation”, or “mould it”. Just like if we were talking about a human being, we should ask “how does it behave? how does it think? how does it see the world? how does it communicate? what are its values? what are its traditions?” Then ask about the origin of all those answers. And there you get the “father figure”. Spaniards speak a Latin-based language/s (but the Basques and some people from Navarra who speak a pre-Roman language), they are Christians, Roman Cahotlics to be more precise, and Spanish justice is based on Visigothic and Roman laws. Spanish culture is overwhelmingly based on Roman culture, as is its society, values, etc. The way Spanish interact with the world and others is based on a Roman perception of the world. They may be others who have influenced Spain, I’m not denying that, but none of them has, not by a long shot, defined Spanish identity as much as Rome has. The only event in history that had a significant importance in defining Spain’s identity other than Rome and getting to America, is the war against the Muslims, which includes the two listed above. But they never “added” to the Spanish identity on significant levels, for the most part they just reinforced it by acting as its antagonists, which is not exactly what I would represent as “parenthood”. Carthage... I don’t even know how that happened. And that’s it. This is not a personal attack to anyone who has any of these headcanons, it may seem like it is, but it is not. If anything, it is an “attack” to these ideas, simply because I don’t think they accurately portray Spain’s history at all, on the contrary, they distort Spanish history based on 18th and 19th century foreigner’s ignorant and orientalist crazy theories and assumption (and anti-Catholic propaganda, tbh), and Hetalia, at the end of the day, is about history. If any one has these headcanons,you do you, go with it, but please be aware that they are not historically accurate, that’s it.

[grandparomeaskblog]

It’s what the girls want

@ask-his-flower-and-her-bear

[aphaskengland-bitter-tea-drinker]

[marmartea]

Historical powercouple + sorry excuse of a background

[ask-his-flower-and-her-bear]

I made some Picrews of britannia and celt. Thought i would share

What do you think?

[bjorkin]

Another version of this drawing.

Celt (Hetalia oc of _raider.ireland_ on Instagram) and young England