#i have zero muse. none at all. i literally cannot write i just look at my drafts and my mind goes blank.

[orchidhelm]

[marmosa]

you mean it?

Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 3.1k

Warnings: none

A/N: i saw this concept done by someone else and it finally kicked my writing brain into gear and i couldn’t not write my own take on it (love potion shenanigans). my requests are currently open because i’ve been at a lack of my own ideas, so feel free to drop a request or two, i’ll be writing up a few of them! in the mean time, i hope you’re all doing well and as always i hope you enjoy <3

*** 

“How do I know you didn’t mess with my drink?”

Fred and George exchanged knowing glances, both unwilling to let on that they did, in fact, tamper with her drink.

“Look, I’m not one to be selective when handed free butterbeer, however if anything I would like to not have my hair dyed against my will again, however cool it may look,” [y/n] sighed, holding her drink up to the light to try and see if there truly was anything suspicious she could note within its contents.

“Would you just trust us?” Fred pleaded, clasping his hands together and shaking them like a child trying not to get grounded.

“Do we look like we’d ever hurt you?” George added, smiling innocently.

“Yes, yes you would,” [y/n] deadpanned, “like when Fred dropped me 50 feet off your broom and nearly missed me when he tried to catch me, or when you gave me food poisoning because the potion you put in my lunch was faulty, or the time that you both nearly killed me with a miscalculated firework, or-,”

“Okay we get it!” The twins groaned, Fred reaching forward to press his hand flat over her mouth to get her to be quiet.

“Just trust us on this one, okay?” George begged, squeezing her shoulder as she eyed the butterbeer unsurely once more.

“Fine, bottoms up lads, hope I don’t end up in the infirmary!” [y/n] cheered half-heartedly, shaking the bottle before downing it like a shot.

“So?” Fred asked, nearly jumping in his spot as the twin both eyed her excitedly.

“So what?” she repeated, scrunching her nose at the weird aftertaste in her mouth, “it was just a-,” her voice trailed out as her eyes zeroed in on Fred, her mouth suddenly running dry.

“Nothing, absolutely nothing! See, Fred, I told you we needed to add less Borage and more Belladonna!” George cursed, shuffling through his book bag for his notebook he kept for notes on these certain instances.

As the twins got lost in their tweaking of the potion, it completely slipped past them that [y/n] was quite literally going through an internal awakening, her mind spinning as she took in the boy before her.

Why was Fred so suddenly at the forefront of her mind? His strong facial features, soft swooping locks, lean and athletic build, all of it was flooding her brain and she felt like she was going to explode. She felt as if she could count every single freckle on his face is she wanted to. Her eyes trailed down to the empty bottle in her hand and it quickly clicked before the potion flooded over her inhibition and stole her capacity to think clearly.

“You’re cute,” she blurt out, her eyes widening in shock before sinking down comfortably, her face relaxing into one of pure adoration, “like really cute.”

The twins halted their discussion and slowly turned to her, their eyes ready to nearly pop out of their heads. They exchanged surprised and then excited glances, George immediately getting to editing his notes.

“[y/n], how do you feel?” Fred questioned, eyeing her up and down as she beamed up at him with a newfound sort of confidence.

“I’m doing fine, darling, why do you ask?” she replied, pressing her fingers against her temples as a surge of sense surged through her, “wait, what- what’s going on?”

“Did the potion work?” George asked, leaning forward to squint into her eyes which she leaned backwards to avoid, her eyes never tearing away from Fred’s who stood there rigid as can be.

“George, I think it worked just fine,” Fred muttered, pulling his brother back by his shoulder, “dosage was a bit off, but it worked.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t mind, you have a lovely voice,” [y/n] lilted, tilting her head to the side as she took a step closer towards Fred.

“Oh shit, she-,”

“Saw me. Yup,” Fred finished George’s sentence, pulling his lips into a tight line.

“But it shouldn’t be a problem since you- OW!” George yelped when Fred pinched his arm, shaking his head in an unspoken “shut up”.

“Uh [y/n], I think we should take you up to your room, you look like you need a nap,” Fred chuckled uneasily, reaching forward but retracting his hand last minute when her eyes nearly popped out of her skull at the contact.

“But I don’t want to be away from you,” she pouted, sagging forward and slinging her arms around his neck, twirling the hairs at the nap of his neck around her pointer finger, “I’ll die without you Freddie.”

Fred chuckled and unwrapped her arms from his neck, pushing her back onto her own feet, “yeah, you most certainly need a nap. Let’s get you back to your dormitory and then we’ll talk about me leaving alright?”

“Sounds lovely,” she hummed, leaning into his side and hooking her arm with his.

“I’ll take care of taking her to keep down a fuss, you run and go see if you can make an antidote, though I hardly think we’ll need it since she keeps coming to on her own,” Fred explained, getting a curt nod from George who ran off to go fix something up.

“Did you know you have such pretty eyes?” [y/n] giggled, reaching forward and brushing his hair out of his face, “You’re even cuter when you blush too.”

Fred wanted nothing more than to go and swim to the very bottom of the black lake right then as he realized she’d picked up on the bright red hue dusting his cheeks, but he couldn’t leave her on her own, he knew that would cause a bigger fuss than any of them wanted.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, not used to being on the receiving end of such forward flirting, “lets get you to your dormitory.”

***

“But you can’t leave! Freddie, darling, please! I can’t be without you, I cannot!” [y/n] pleaded helplessly, clinging to his robes with balled fists.

“[y/n], you most certainly can be without me for a few moments,” Fred tried to sooth her distress, holding her up by her shoulders to keep her from sinking onto the floor.  

“I can’t! Freddie I’m in love with you, I simply cannot be apart from you, it’ll hurt too much,” she nearly cried, plopping down on the nearest bed, her eyes already watering over.

Fred chewed on the inside of his cheek, thoroughly embarrassed that he was partially responsible for putting her through this, “Look, hey, hey look at me, don’t cry please?”

She sniffled, looking up at him as he sat next to her, the comforter sinking down beneath them, “I can’t help but cry when you say you’re going to leave me!”

“I know, it’s hard, if I could take you with me, I would darling, trust me. But you know the dormitory rules, McGonagall would have my head on a stick,” Fred explained, reaching forward and brushing away the stray tear that rolled down her cheek.  

Her eyes widened a bit as she relished in the attention, her clouded mind basking in the sweet affection and reassurance he was giving her. She hummed quietly and leaned her head onto his shoulder, her head twinging as the effects of the potion wavered once more.

“Fred, where are we?”

“[y/n]! You’ve come back to?” Fred exclaimed, leaning back to observe her face scrunched in discomfort, confusion quickly overtaking him when her face laxed into bliss again.

“I’m- I’m fine now that you’re staying here with me,” she nodded, throwing herself over his lap, beaming up at him when he looked back at her all flustered, “you’re so pretty, did you know that?”

“I didn’t, no,” he chuckled awkwardly, tearing his gaze away from her love-sick eyes, his heart about ready to beat out of his chest.

“Well you are. You are oh so pretty, Freddie dear, a proper beauty if I ever did see one,” she sighed dreamily, walking her fingers up his chest to tap her finger gently at the tip of his nose.

He scrunched his nose at the feather light touch, pursing his lips disapprovingly when she giggled at his discomfort, “thank you, [y/n].”

“It’s my pleasure darling,” she chirped, fluttering her eyes shut, “I think you were right about me needing a nap.”

“I’m always right, [y/l/n],” he mused, leaning back on his arms to give her more room to get comfortable in his lap, “but if you’re tired you should get into bed, I don’t think you’d do well laying on my knees.”

“But they’re comfortable, I could lay here all day,” she hummed contentedly, folding her hands over her stomach, “I could spend all my time with you and never grow bored of your company.”

“You flatter me far too much,” He mumbled, glancing away again to try to hide the flaming red quickly overtaking his features.

“I don’t flatter you enough,” she replied simply, already starting to nod off, “but that’ll change. I love you so much, darling, I will flatter you for the rest of my days if it makes you happy.”

“That would indeed make me very happy,” Fred smiled softly, smoothing his hand over her cheek as she finally dozed off.

***

“Okay I think I’ve got something!”

Fred’s head snapped up from the book in his lap as George burst into the room, holding a small vile in his hand. Fred shushed him, nodding up from the floor to [y/n]’s sleeping figure behind him on the bed.

“Oh, sorry,” George whispered, “but I’ve got something fixed, I even got it doubled checked by a professor who promised not to tell.”

“Do you have a drink?” Fred asked, pushing himself off the floor to take the vile from his brother to inspect himself.

“No more butterbeer, unfortunately, but on my way here I nicked a small bottle of apple cider from the Hall, so that should do it,” George explained, pulling an almost shot glass out of his robes pocket.

“Brilliant, that should do it, I’ll wake her up,” Fred nodded, handing the potion back to his brother, and heading over to [y/n], “hey sleepy head, you gotta wake up.”

“Mmm,” [y/n] muttered, rolling over on her side as she opened her eyes soflty, “Freddie!”

He chuckled softly as she reached up towards him blindly, her eyes still shut as they readjusted to the sudden burst of light, her hands wrapping around his neck and pulling him down towards her.

“Hey, careful there, don’t wanna break me in two, do you,” Fred laughed, [y/n] releasing him with a soft gasp as her eyes snapped open once more.

“I don’t want to snap you in half, that would be dastardly, darling,” she explained, obviously distraught at the insinuation of injuring him.

“Well, since you’re up, George here’s did you the favor of getting you something to drink, it’s apple cider, I remember you saying that you really liked it,” Fred smiled warmly, taking the drink from George who stepped back, amused at the awkward situation they were put in but endeared at his brother being so uncharacteristically soft.

“Well if you say it’s my favorite, it probably is, you’re too sweet to lie to me Fred,”  [y/n] grinned, swirling the drink around in its bottle, “would you like some?”

“No thank you, I’ve just about had enough to drink today, I think it’d do better if you had it all,” He nodded, “Besides if I want some I can always go get my own.”

“Good point darling, thank you for the drink,” she mused before downing its contents whole.

It didn’t take long to see the potion take effect as her face scrunched into one of disgust before smoothing out into one of confusion, “that tasted like shit what the bloody hell was that- wait, what happened?”

Fred and George both let out a simultaneous breath of relief, momentarily cheering amongst themselves as [y/n] stared up at them with a quizzical look.

“Well I suppose you deserve an explanation,” George muttered sheepishly, taking the empty shot glass from her hand and tossing it in the nearest bin.

“That would be nice, yes,” she frowned, rubbing at her temples as her skull pulsed, the potion finally washing out all the previous effects of the other potion, “I don’t remember much except for drinking the butterbeer- what the hell did you guys put in it.”

“Promise not to get mad?” Fred bat his eyelashes innocently, tilting his head to the side with clasped hands to emphasize the effect.

“I think we’ve gone far past that, but I guess so,” she grumbled, shifting so she was laying down to accommodate her now twinging headache.

“We might’ve, possibly, on accident, give you love potion,” George laughed uneasily, trying his best to diffuse the tension, knowing he was failing miserably.

“Well who was I fancying? Who did I make a fool of myself in front of?” she asked from under the arm she’d slung over her face to block out the light.

Fred chuckled awkwardly, pulling the inside of his cheek between his teeth. [y/n] lifted her arm and looked at Fred with wide eyes, her mouth falling open as the gears in her head rolled to a conclusion. George rolled onto the balls of his feet, shuffling towards the door as Fred and [y/n] got lost in their own world, slipping out of the room as soon as he could.

“No,” She groaned, “No!”

Fred sunk into himself as he watched her roll over and curl up into a ball, almost like a frightened pill bug. He wanted to escape the room just as George had done, he wanted to pretend this had never happened, he wanted to run and hide in his room until this entire prank had blown over. What made it worse was he didn’t think he was going to have to hear her verbal rejection of true feelings for him so soon.

“It wasn’t that bad if that makes you feel any better,” Fred muttered, shuffling over and sitting at the foot of her bed.

“Wasn’t bad- tch,” she sat up and stared at him with demanding eyes, “what did I even say? Wait, don’t tell me, it’ll just make me feel worse.”

[y/n] fell backwards again and pressed her palms into her eyes, letting out a shaky breath. She didn’t want to look at Fred, not even wanting to face him right now, she made a mental note to strangle George later for slipping away when she was so plainly swallowed in shock and humiliation. It was unfathomable that she was so outwardly love-sick to a boy who most certainly didn’t see her as anything other than a friend, and now she had to hear his rejection up front.

“It really wasn’t anything bad. If anything, it was just really forward flirting,” Fred tried to sooth her, still feeling guilty for the turmoil she was facing.  

“But it probably made you so uncomfortable and you probably had to babysit me while you were uncomfortable and now I’m gonna be so awkward about everything and you probably hate me,” she confessed, wanting nothing more than to just shrink into herself and forget she was there.

“I truly didn’t mind it at all, I actually found it sort of endearing, actually,” He mumbled, looking away to avoid any and all eye-contact.

“You didn’t?” she replied, taken aback that he wasn’t as disgusted as she’d thought he’d be.

“Not at all. It was the first time someone so outwardly flirted with me and it was kind of nice coming from you. You said I had pretty eyes,” He chuckled to himself, still staring holes into the floor.

[y/n] was speechless. Of all the horribly embarrassing things she probably did and said, that was the one thing he chose to relay to her. She wasn’t sure how to proceed after that, not being able to tell if he was simply being nice and recalling a gentle interaction or if he was truly being honest about his feelings.

“What else did I say?” She asked quietly, sitting up and scooting over so she was sitting somewhat next to him.

“You said you loved me,” He smiled softly, “and you did this,” he imitated her earlier actions, walking his fingers up from her collarbones to tap her nose with his finger, smiling when she scrunched her nose just as he had done.

“I did, didn’t I? Well,” she shrugged, offering him a smile of her own, boldly reaching forward and tucking his hair behind his ear, “that was a proper rubbish potion then. It’s suppose to make you say things you don’t mean, isn’t it?”

Fred nearly collapsed in on himself, a blissful grin pulling its way onto his lips, “You love me?”

“You’d think that was clear by now,” [y/n] giggled.

“I just wanted to make sure before I did this.”

“Did what?” she quipped, looking at him quizzically.

“This,” he reached forward and cupped her cheek, pulling her face to his and connecting their lips.

As soon as the initial shock factor fell away [y/n] was giving her entire self into the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him in as close as she could in their awkward positioning. Fred didn’t hesitate either, pouring all the pent up feelings he’d been hiding throughout the day into the kiss. It was over as quick as it had started, the both of them pulling away with the sweet smiles.

“I’m thinking we should spike your drinks more often,” Fred suggested cheekily, biting back a laugh when her face fell into a glare.

“If you even think of doing that again, I will not only never kiss you again, I will never speak to you again,” she snapped, “what happened to the Fred that was so sweet a little while ago.”

“Hey! I’m still sweet!” Fred scoffed, crossing his arms across his chest and pouting like a child who’d just gotten their toy taken away from them.

“Don’t think so,” she shrugged, scooting away from him until she was resting against the headboard.

“Don’t think so? Oh I’ll show you just how sweet I can be, come here,” he grinned mischievously, crawling over and dragging her down by her hips.

“Hey, careful there!” she squealed, bracing herself on his shoulders.

“You wanted me to be sweet? Careful what you wish for love, you just might get it,” he teased, leaning down and capturing her lips once more. 

[rpbetter]

Hi Vespertine. Sorry to add to the pile, I promise I will send in some writing related things to compensate later. I also misgendered that user in a comment by accident with she/her. I blocked them, but they still looked at my blog, and they made a post that said by using the wrong pronouns, which they thought was intentional and meant to hurt them, I purposefully called them a hysterical woman stereotype. Obviously that wasn't true. I was just going off a comment someone else made on my blog where they used she/her, and I thought I had to correct myself. It was a case where good intentions, even if I was not happy with the user's behavior or expected to talk to them again, I was still going to use the right pronouns, but my intentions were warped by someone with an agenda. I'm sorry to hear you're getting the same heat. I didn't use my rp blog to interact with the user or talk about them because I was sure something like this would happen, either by them or other people like that callout blog, and I think other people had the same idea. I dodged a bullet there, but I'm still paranoid. I'm paranoid I'll hear a notif and see my rp blog in a callout for this, because someone hunted it down, or a callout for trying to talk to the person who started all the drama. Nobody should be scared to talk about someone on their own blog. Nobody should be scared to talk openly, in general. Nobody should be called out for trying to talk with someone either. This culture of fear is so disturbing to me.

Hey there, Anon!

Oh, I would love that, but you totally don't have to, of course. Don't feel bad for adding on, I'm here for anything at all, and honestly, with the job I'm doing IRL right now, it's really hard for me to concentrate well enough on finishing any of the advice posts (at least, to be the quality y'all deserve). It's a hot topic, it's included so, so, terribly many people in the RPC. It's also one that's generating some great, needed conversations. So, it isn't like you're adding to anything bad, annoying or distracting me, or contributing to the inflammatory side of this.

Hell, it's got to be really nice for some of the people in messages I've received to see proof that they weren't alone in this experience. I can keep publishing the hate anons for exactly that reason, and I can promise people they aren't the only ones (in this or in any such horrible behavior), but it's different to see it coming from a third party! So, thank you for that.

Though, I am deeply sorry that you were treated to more than a ringside seat in this debacle.

It's not very encouraging to be thoughtful and respectful of other people when literally nothing you can say or do will result in anything other than more twisting of your words, and that's a big problem I have with this shit. Things like actual transphobia, intentional misgendering, actual infantalization and shit treatment of ND people, actual harassment, etc. etc. etc. matter. It's just more trivializing of real problems for the sake of blowing nonexistent bullshit up, and that is immensely disgusting to me. The fact that you damn well know someone out there has had the reaction to this behavior of, well, fuck you then, fuck trans people is really upsetting.

Like, yeah, let's be real, if you require social rewards to do the right thing, you have some problems lol but at the same time, you know who does require social rewards to develop themselves? Young people. And the RPC is largely comprised of people in their early twenties who, for a variety of possible reasons, are still at that point

Furthermore, no, it's not anyone's job to be good representation at all times, especially when that performance comes at a cost to themselves, but maybe don't go out of your way to be the person that is the necessary push in the wrong direction of someone's formative experience with people of your community. If it's costing you nothing to not clown on serious issues, but is costing the entire world another bigot for you to clown on serious issues, the choice should be a bit obvious here. Whenever you're in a safe place - physically, emotionally - and capable of that kind of logic, exercise it, damn.

It's definitely a better course of action than playing out skewed activism by vilifying innocent people, more worthy of one's effort than losing their collective shit over a very easy mistake. One that I'd say was even less avoidable in your case. AGAIN, how, exactly is anyone supposed to know this shit when they're blocked? When they aren't subverting the blocks they, themselves, put in place? I know for a fact none of them are looking at the information of the people they choose to try to drive out of the RPC, but everyone else is supposed to make zero reasonable assumptions, check and recheck blogs they have made an effort not to visit for good reason. Sounds absolutely reasonable and sane!

So, you know what? I'm going to be even more offensive here and talk for a moment about why these mistakes are reasonable.

When we see a post and reblog it, it's not unreasonable to assume that the OP had knowledge we didn't. Since we blocked the offending party, but they're discussing them. OP uses the incorrect pronouns, we end using the incorrect pronouns as well. This is not malicious intent. It isn't intentional at all, it's just having a discussion. A discussion that wouldn't have even transpired if they hadn't taken it upon themselves to (what a coincidence) take personal issue with a RPer they repeatedly took out of context and decided to shame for it, before proceeding to get an even bigger stick and pot.

When we decide to block a blog, it's our responsibility to stay off of it. Not go looking at it for any reason. That is now off-limits. When someone blocks us, it's also our responsibility to respect that decision, no matter how outrageous it was, no matter what we might need to verify. That's the issue with blocking when we don't exploit how easy it is to get around blocking on tumblr; we've cut ourselves off from any further meaningful communication, including passive communication like rules and posts. Kind of like how you cannot expect an apology to mean a damn thing when you've blocked everyone you harassed, then made that apology in a post on your blocked blog. Don't put up walls you expect people to see through, then get upset when they can't see through them.

As a community, the RPC is primarily afab. That's never a problem to bring up when someone wants to be angry about their female muse not getting equal attention and so on, but it's a problem to discuss any other time, about any other problem. Dealing with the things that we're socially raised to ascribe to as afab people is that problem. It's reflected in our behaviors, interests, and speech. We may not want to live in a gendered world, we may eschew that, but we were raised in a gendered world and it shows. One which has a lot of complications for being that, like almost everyone feeling safer around afab people by default of the All Men Are Bad, All Women Are Harmless bullshit.

We not only know that the RPC is primarily afab, we tend to assume comfort, especially in hostile situations, by assuming those pronouns in others.

And it so does not matter how much any of us like it, some people have more masculine or feminine tones. Even in text. That means neither that someone's gender identity should be disregarded nor that this text-based presentation is correct, but like every other unfair thing that exists, it's a thing. Like you, Anon, you genuinely come across in tone as primarily neutral, slight lean toward masculine. Even if I wasn't inclined to do so, not knowing you and all, I'd use they/them for you instinctively because that's what your speech is giving me. That isn't any more unreasonable than ascribing another set of pronouns based on the same information.

Oh yeah, I know, lurkers, the difference is that they/them is the appropriate choice when one does not know. I know that logically, but people aren't always operating like robots, weirdly enough. We default to a lot of instinctive behaviors, and we aren't always operating at the top rung of cognition either. Being human works like that, it's really that simple and not malicious if you're not reading that into it.

As we're all aware, it is being read into, and your experience is exactly why; you now feel worried every time you get a notif, you've been outed as a supposed transphobe, and while it is incredibly fortunate you stopped this from transpiring on your RP blog, it still transpired somewhere and has had a negative effect. If they find they correct thing or set of things, they can get so many more people to dogpile you over it. Get enough people to do that, make someone miserable enough, especially people who are already going through a hard enough time already, they'll leave.

It is a terroristic act, and it has the effect of all terroristic acts; people are afraid to exist outside of shifting bounds (that shifting is a part of the terrorism). They can't have an opinion, write any muse/topic they wish, be honest on their own blogs, support the "wrong" topics, muns, or blogs. Attacking people for a mistake, not allowing them to address it either, just furthers all of that. It's showing the community what happens when you aren't on the "right" side, even if that isn't even the case. They certainly turn on their own quickly enough.

So, of course, it's a culture of fear and it is disturbing as hell. No one has any right to make someone feel unsafe over fiction or a hobby or a difference of opinion. Everyone has the right to say whatever they want on their own blogs, to talk openly, and yes, to try to talk to others without feeling at risk.

Even if what someone says is genuinely unpleasant. This isn't the way one handles it. By all means, have a problem with something, have a problem with someone, but grow up and talk to them openly, without bringing everyone you can dredge up to join in. I have no issue with people arguing, I have an issue with bullying. If it's your whole goal to harass people without consequences to the end result of deactivation and lockstep behavior from everyone else, that's what you're doing, folks. Bullying.

If you can't win an argument, especially one your own ass began, in any other way than this, you're not engaging in an argument.

[kai-keda]

YO!

We have a character analysis on Prussia based on Hetalia World Stars/character songs/the anime (as those are the only things I have full access to)

Full script under the "read more”

Clapping Nasty! Thot! Turbo! Virgin! Chaotic! Energy! Clapping

I was dared to say all those things first thing when starting this video. Except that last one. That last one was my own doing.

Anyways, let’s give a quick overview of how this analysis is gonna work. First, we need to discuss what may be considered the elephant in the room to people in the Hetalia fandom who know me on Discord.

Specifically the people in one particular RP server I’m in.

We need to talk about canon.

Now in the past I’ve made a point of the importance of canon when representing these characters. And I stand by everything I’ve said in the past, just not the way I said it. See, I don’t think the people I’ve talked to about it really understand what I meant and that may be my own fault.

When I tried to push the importance of keeping true to what we know about the characters, I got hit with comments like “well I like to add my own ‘glam’ to the character” or “there’s not much about my muse in canon so where does that leave me?” and so on and so forth.

What I really meant by ‘keeping true to canon’ in Hetalia is that we shouldn’t purposefully go against something we know for a fact is true. Even though it’s really easy when there’s not a lot of material for the character in question in the first place, I just can’t understand the appeal of doing something like that. To put it simply, I fell in love with the characters for who they are, not for who I believe they should be.

This issue came up again - unrelated to the first time it was brought up - on tumblr when someone made a popular post about people being told they’re wrong for representing the characters of Hetalia in certain ways outside of canon because they were from the area in question and wanted their character to be more accurate to their culture as they saw it.

Which is a really complicated, controversial and specific to Hetalia discussion, to be perfectly honest. It’s still a great discussion to be had, though!

Where do we draw the line between cultural/historical accuracy and canon characterization? How do we decide what’s more important? When do we let one side win out if we let it win out at all?

These are all great questions that should be saved to be answered another time on another video and/or tumblr post.

For now, let’s just talk about the meaning behind the title of this video and then I promise we’ll get into the character analysis.

If any of my Dragon Ball fans are here, you’ll probably recognize said title from “This is My Goku” and yes I did it on purpose. I’m sort of parodying my own video because that one was so serious and fueled by anger, spite and hatred that it turned out pretty comical in nature. And this one is one fueled by happiness, positive energy and genuine curiosity.

I’m not here to prove some sort of point, I’m here to see how in-line my personal idea of the character is with how he’s represented in the most recent version of “canon” in Hetalia. (i.e; How well does my headcanon fueled characterization fit with the Hetalia World Stars comic strips that HetaScanalations has so graciously shared with all of us?)

A LOT of what we know of Prussia cannot help but be based on personal headcanons and popular fanons alike. He’s frankly not in the series enough to do a full proper analysis of his character because we only really see him in passing in pretty insignificant strips.

So while I really wanted to call this video “Hetalia Prussia Dissection” I can’t do it. I really honestly either don’t have the skill level or really don’t have the material to do that concept justice. So today we’re going to go into what’s canon and what my own ‘glam’ added to the character really is. (See what I did there? I have nothing against combining headcanon with canon, I just don’t like letting headcanon completely and purposefully override canon but again, that’s a topic for another day.)

So with all that said and understood, let us begin our awesome journey.

Okay so here’s the dealio, Prussia is a narcissist and we’re gonna go into the psychology of that in depth and talk about what all that entails and see how much evidence we have to support that claim in canon.

According to PsychologyToday which, to my understanding, is a credible enough source for quick glances into the minds of people, while having a superiority complex does play a part in narcissism, it’s really a feeling of fear of showing vulnerability that leads it.To quote; “The narcissist fears that acknowledging any weakness will allow someone else the chance to take advantage of him or gain power over him.” And another quote: “Simply put, true narcissists have zero interest in introspection or self-improvement. Their guiding principle: Never, ever let your guard down.”

Now, none of the Hetalia World Stars comics, the Anime nor the character songs themselves actually show Prussia being afraid of being vulnerable explicitly stating, but if we look at the symptoms of narcissism and his history, we can see, in my honest opinion, where that comes into play.

The DSM 5th Editions symptoms for narcissistic personality disorder as described by Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. on psychologytoday.com are as follows:

1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance.

2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.

3. Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).

4. Requires excessive admiration [regularly fishes for compliments, and is highly susceptible to flattery].

5. Has a sense of entitlement.

6. Is interpersonally exploitative.

7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.

8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.

9. Shows arrogant, haughty [rude and abusive] behaviors or attitudes.

This particular author of this particular article goes on to add a few more traits and symptoms. Those being:

1. They are highly reactive to criticism

2. They have a low self-esteem

3. Can be inordinately self-righteous and defensive

4. React to contrary viewpoints with anger or rage

5. Project onto others qualities, traits and behaviors they can’t - or won’t - accept in themselves

6. Have poor interpersonal boundaries

This article began by stating that only five of these fifteen traits need to be met in order to be considered for having narcissistic personality disorder. So let’s take a I’m-discovering-writing-this-analysis-as-I-go dive into my notes of where all Prussia's appearances are with these symptoms in mind to see if we can name at least five instances.

Right off the bat in both cases with the first listed symptom and the first appearance of Prussia in Chapter 12 where he unifies Germany, Prussia considers himself the one that is destined to lead the newly formed nation of Germany as his older brother. This is the idea of self-importance. Basically he has the idea of “If I’m not the one to do it, then no one can do it properly.” hence his fighting with Austria (and I bet winning said fight didn’t help.)

So there’s one.

But wait! There’s more in this chapter!

That same instance of him believing he needs to be Germany’s older brother goes along with the symptom of entitlement. It MUST be him simply because it MUST be him.

So we’ve got two now.

“Is highly susceptible to flattery”. When I read that I knew exactly what chapter we were going to discuss. I literally wrote in my notes for chapter 294 “Prussia is weak to flattery” because in the beginning of 294 and the whole of 293, Prussia was arguing with his king Frederick I about how much focus should be put on clothing, but the INSTANT Frederick I mentions that Prussia would probably look cool in the flashy outfits, Prussia caves and goes to spy on France to see about getting said flashy outfits for himself.

That’s three~ Two more and we’ve got ourselves a narcissist.

Being ‘arrogant’ is defined as ‘having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities’ and if that doesn’t describe Prussia in literally all of his “I am awesome!” glory, I don’t know what does. It should be self-explanatory to any fan of this series that, yes, Prussia is very arrogant.

Four down, one to go!

Number two in our list of symptoms “Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.” I BELIEVE this includes having constant daydreams about past glories as well as bringing them up all the time or when discussing said past glories, only discusses how great and awesome they were at the time.

Cough-cough - Prussia’s diary in 339 where he openly admits that said diary is mostly him saying “You are awesome” 20 times over.

And there we go. Let me know if you think of anymore instances in ANY official material that fits into these symptoms. I’d love to hear about them.

So with those five understood, it’s safe to assume Prussia is in fact a narcissist which - I know - comes as a shock to literally NOBODY but I figured it was important to actually pull up evidence for as opposed to just stating it as a passing fact and moving on like a lot of us Hetalians tend to do.

Explaining understandings of characterization is the fun part of character analysis, after all.

So let’s backtrack a little. Remember how that first article said being a narcissist comes from having a fear of vulnerability? Well, let’s go into headcanon and fanon land for two seconds as we read between the lines to find these signs of vulnerability based on the assumption that Prussia does in fact have this disorder.

Constantly in his official character songs, like “Mein Gott” or the Bad Friends Trio’s song “Overflowing Passion”, Prussia can be heard singing about how ‘it’s great to be alone!’ I take this to be a sign that Prussia understands that everyone is aware of him being lonely but he takes that understanding and turns it into a sign of ‘awesomeness’ as opposed to a weakness. He’d rather turn something most of humanity recognizes as a negative into a positive than admit to his own sadness. It’s the last thing he wants.

Let’s continue down this headcanon rabbit hole and talk about the wonderful Law 46 that was signed in 1947 after WWII and before the Berlin Wall. This is the Law signed by the Allied Control Council (France, America, Britain and the USSR) that stated that Prussia’s excessive militarism combined with excessive nationalism was too dangerous for the world as it was to blame for “repeated German pestilence” as Churchill put it.

Basically, this is the moment Prussia lost his nation and, in popular fanon, became East Germany.

There is no way on God’s green Earth that ANYONE is going to convince me that losing his nation like this - not just losing it in general but losing it to a piece of paper instead of a glorious battle that wiped his resources out - didn’t hurt and still to this day hurts Prussia on a deep emotional level. But do we ever see him talk about it?

No. And why is that? Because that would be a vulnerability.

See, I interpret Prussia as being my favorite type of character. The character that smiles and laughs and puts on a show about how great life is even though deep down they’re suffering from some serious issues whether it be trauma, negative mental health or just bad memories.

I know, I know, that’s not exactly a rare character type but I really don’t care, it’s still my favorite. It’s also not something that’s hard to see in real life. People will often hide behind a mask. We see it all the time in celebrities that people will refuse to ask for help when they are suffering because they’d rather everyone believe everything is fine for this that and/or another reason.

(Honestly though, can’t relate, because when I’m sad I let everyone know but that’s just a personal aside)

Getting off the narcissism train, let’s talk about something significantly less serious.

Prussia likes cute things and is attuned to nature. He’s constantly making references to nature like saying that it’s a great sign that even rabbits will prostrate before him in 299, saying “it’s cool like a wild little bird” in 293 and also mentioning how cute a little chirping bird is in his songs “Mein Gott” and his “Marukaitte Chikyuu.” Not to mention his image for his character profile shows him with a little bird on his head and holding a stuffed bear.

This ties in to both wanting to keep young ones’ innocence in tact as well as how in real life history, the German people had the most respect for nature at a time.

I have a friend who has taken multiple art history classes tell me that in German art there are often scenes of humans being lesser than nature that show how vast, beautiful and truly terrifying nature is.

As for Prussia wanting to help younger people keep their innocence, there is a chapter (chapter 187) where Prussia is reading Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales to a dying Holy Roman Empire (a character still portrayed as a child) and when questions arise like “Why would the witch be mad about Rapunzel’s clothes not fitting her and why would she blame the prince? There was no evidence of the prince bringing in food for her to eat.” he literally throws the book out the window.

He’s later, in the same chapter, shown to be writing the Grimm brothers asking them to PLEASE make the stories more actually child friendly if they’re going to advertise them as being stories for children.

So while in headcanon I imagine Prussia as not-shy-at-all about such things around other adults, it’s another story around children and those he perceives to be innocent. He canonically wants to preserve that cute nature of theirs and will do what he can to do such.

Random fun fact about the Hetalia character of Prussia; he gets really whiny when he’s hungover in chapter 32. He begs Germany to make him food and do other things for him even while Germany himself is also hungover. Also he says “I can’t eat things with faces on them” which woooo boy I’d hate to see what our cute-little-bird loving fool would think of Peeps.

Anyways, I think that’s about all I’ve got and surprisingly, we actually did have a lot to talk about with Prussia using mainly the comics and only partially headcanon. And it’s not even including the original run of the webcomic and manga since I don’t have easy access to those. And we didn’t really discuss the anime too much (mainly because it was just more of what we were able to see in the World Stars serialization).

Please feel free to continue the discussion in the comments. I’d love to hear/read more about one of my three favorite characters and how he’s perceived by others.