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snowblindmods) wrote2015-04-06 10:43 pm
snowblindmods) wrote2015-04-06 10:43 pm
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England | Axis Powers Hetalia (1/2)
Name: Cee
Age: 21
Contact Info:
Other Characters: N/A
Character Information
Name: England
Canon: Axis Powers Hetalia
Age: 1088 as a united nation, ~1600 total history, appears 23
Gender: Male
Canon Point: June 2015
Background Link: Hetalia wiki, history of England, and history of the United Kingdom
Inventory: England's attire consists of a three-piece brown suit with a white dress shirt, red tie, brown belt, and brown dress shoes. He has his keys, wallet, and smartphone in his trousers pockets, and a comb, pen, and embroidered handkerchief in his inner jacket pocket. The wallet holds his IDs, bank cards, British currency, photos, and a few old receipts.
Personality: Once upon a time, there was a very, very small child with very, very big eyebrows. He had a mother and a few older brothers, and the responsibility of a whole nation on his scruffy little shoulders.
That was a long time ago, but honestly, England hasn't changed much since then. He mostly just got taller.
The most important thing to know about England is that he doesn't trust easily. Many facets of his personality and how he interacts with other people stem from his trust issues. Simply by virtue of what he is, England has lived through a lot of dirty political tricks, backstabbing, and betrayals — and he's reciprocated his fair share of it. He knows what people are capable of, so even if he sometimes dares to hope for the best, what he's expecting is always the worst. England taught himself early on to be stubbornly cynical, because idealism doesn't do you any favours when your land is being invaded before you're tall enough to properly use a longbow.
Where the problem comes in is the fact that, by nature, England isn't like that. He was always cautious, always introverted, but it was the world that taught him to be pessimistic and distrustful. So, he's always held that against the world. And, just the same, he tends to take it out on the world, too.
It goes without saying at this point that England can be hard to get along with. It's definitely not impossible; he's friends with Japan and is civil enough with Seychelles that he feels comfortable asking her to be the honeymoon location for the royal couple, plus he's downright pleasant to baby America in the 1600s. It's said that he has a soft spot for cute people, magical creatures, and children. But he's a bit easily offended (mostly because he's always expecting to be offended) and he's prone to keep people at arm's length. So, carrying on an extended conversation with him can be difficult unless one can get him talking about something he's interested in.
He's actually fairly tolerable to most people he's first meeting, unless he's in a spectacularly bad mood. He's completely capable of talking to someone without biting their head off if he doesn't have reason to think they're going to slight him somehow, though a lot of his relation to people is through shallow pleasantries and sarcasm anyway, as those are the go-to communication methods for a distant jerk like him. He's also made a habit of lashing out easily when someone says something he doesn't like, because he's got a stick up his arse and a temper as ridiculous as the day is long. Once someone does slight him, that's where everything goes all pear-shaped. England holds grudges forever. In the strip that details the Anglo-Japanese alliance, there is a note about his treatment of France that describes vindictive action as "typical" of England and that "he never forgives his enemies". His reaction to July 4th illustrates this well; even over two hundred years later, he still gets a seasonal sickness in reaction to Independence Day, and it's one of his favourite topics to drunkenly rant about. But if someone can manage to talk to him without pissing him off, he can occasionally be pleasant company.
England fancies himself a gentleman despite his propensity for poor behaviour, of course. He likes people to think that he's ruled by reason and propriety and that he can keep up the "stiff upper lip" ideal all the time. But anyone who knows England also knows that his claims to gentlemanly fame are an exercise in both pretence and futility. At his core, England is rowdy, vulgar, and selfish. The truth is, he's overemotional; he's easily swayed by sentiment, both good and bad. Pointless reminiscing and centuries-old grudges are both commonplace for England, and they both affect his actions. He's definitely gone to war over grudges before — when the War of Austrian Succession became unfavourable for Austria, England left a note for him that said "Just wanted to kick France's ass. I'm neutral now." And then, following that, he joined the Seven Years' War on Prussia's side against Austria, just because Austria had allied with France and England wanted a piece of the fight against the French forces.
It's no secret that England is a huge hypocrite in a lot of ways, especially in regards to the "gentleman" thing. He'll reprimand someone for their table manners in one moment and then jump over that same table to clock France in the teeth in the next. Not acknowledging this hypocrisy is par for the course with England, as is denying it if he's ever called out on it.
In general, England doesn't like admitting when he's wrong, and he doesn't like asking for help. It's a matter of pride. He has constructed for himself an absolutely absurd fortress built of pride and held together by a strong paste of denial. He learned many centuries ago that weakness doesn't pay, and he sees being wrong — and especially admitting to someone that he was or ever could be wrong — as a weakness. England is always right (except when he's not), and he's always strong (except when he's not). Admitting otherwise is admitting defeat. When he does confess to needing assistance or advice, it's very reluctant, as demonstrated in the recent Industrial Revolution strips. If it's for the betterment of his nation, he'll suck it up and do it, but he won't like it.
Honestly, the pride thing covers a much broader spectrum than just doing dumb, hypocritical shit; it blankets any kind of vulnerability in general, including the kinder side of human emotion. England is reluctant to make concessions of any calibre to people because he worries that they will be marked and taken advantage of.
This doesn't mean that he never does anything nice, but he tends to have regret upon doing so, due to his aforementioned tendency to view softer emotions in himself as weakness. Of course, despite this, England never learns in this regard. In much the same way as when he lets his temper get the better of him, sometimes he gets sentimental urges that simply cannot be ignored. Getting attached to someone is damning for England, because it inevitably means he's going to embarrass himself by being nice to them. And it gets worse the longer someone sticks around. Though he'd dig his own grave before admitting to it, when he cares for someone, he's in it for the long haul, even if he often seems very hot-and-cold in the short term. And he has the capacity to care very deeply for people, even if he's rubbish at actually showing it.
On the whole, England is so critical of himself and his own emotions because of low self-esteem. After all, he's just some rainy, black sheep island with no friends and no more empire to compensate for not having friends. Or so he often thinks, anyway, because self-deprecation is another of his wonderfully marketable skills. Truthfully, England does have a few friends amongst the other nations; not many, but that's asking a bit much of a group of beings that have been fighting amongst each other for centuries. However, due to his trust issues, England sometimes has trouble believing that people are genuine when they claim to like him or offer him help, so he can be a bit of an unwarranted jerk if he thinks that someone might just be playing some sort of elaborate emotional prank on him.
Oh, and about that compensating thing up there? England does that all the time. No one is allowed to know about his low self-esteem because that's — surprise! — a weakness, so England covers it up with bravado ranging from an aristocratic hauteur to a boastfulness more becoming of America than an English gentleman. He'll brag about himself, his nation, his culture, and his abilities if given the opportunity, and occasionally even when someone is going out of their way to hide the opportunity from him. Admittedly, England does tend to go on about things that he genuinely thinks are great; he has nothing but the utmost pride in his country, as is appropriate for a nation. Whenever he's faking it, he's doing it almost specifically to be contrary to something someone else said.
To keep in the spirit of being contrary and a general pain in the ass about emotions, England has refined repression into a delicately-honed craft. Arguably, this is part of the reason his own emotions are so intense and out of control; he doesn't deal with them in healthy manners, he just squashes them down and hopes they'll go away when they inconvenience him. That, or he drinks, but the repression is generally favourable over the drinking, which often becomes a messy affair of crying about the Revolution and overall being an overemotional trainwreck to anyone in the vicinity. Of course, as with all unhealthy coping mechanisms, both repressing and drinking are apt to backfire spectacularly on England, with a proverbial fireworks show guaranteed once he has tried to cram just a little too much feeling into one tiny bottle.
On the whole, England dwells on the past a great deal. This is partially a side effect of what he is; as a nation, he naturally places a high value on history. Aside from his people, England's own history is one of the most important things to him. However, practically speaking, England's unwillingness to let go of the past can be problematic for him and the people that insist upon keeping his company. The problem of England's eternal grudges goes without saying at this point, but it isn't just the bad things he clings to. He holds on to the good just as tightly — which, while sweet in theory, has its own issues. Lingering on what England sees as the glory days colours his perception of the present in a negative light, because to him, things aren't as good as they used to be. A demonstration of this in canon is the way England dwells on how things used to be between he and America back in the colonial days; America was much friendlier to England as a child, so England often thinks back on how nice it used to be, to the detriment of his current friendship with America (he used to be so much cuter).
He might not obsess over things long since passed if he weren't so damn stubborn. This is the guy who turned to piracy and privateering in the seventeenth century when he wasn't making legitimate money fast enough, conquered a quarter of the world in the name of influence and power in the nineteenth century, and kicked Germany's aerial assault to the curb despite being the last major Allied power standing during World War II. England is accustomed to fighting until he gets what he wants, often through sneaky or underhanded methods like spying and privateering. And though he no longer has the clout of the world's largest empire behind him, he still argues like he does. Of course, this goes back to the weakness thing, as well: losing is weakness, and England isn't weak. Therefore, he always has to win, even if it's a stupid argument over the proper name for chips or football.
England is so contradictory and ridiculous because, deep down — and not as deep down as England thinks — he's mostly just a huge lonely dork. England has an enormous fondness for fairy tales, myth, magic, and romance (both the classical and modern definitions of it). England was always able to see the fairies back in his world, and even had those that were his consistent companions throughout the years, which helped to ease the loneliness of being a thoroughly unpopular island nation. Even in the modern day, he can often be seen talking to what appears to be thin air as he converses with the magical creatures that live in his land. And, apparently, even the ones that don't, as he was once shown communicating with creatures from Japanese folklore while he was visiting Japan.
He got attached to the fantastical nature of magic as a very young child, and that has stayed with him for centuries. He has never stopped believing, even in spite of the fact that most other nations, with a few exceptions, can't see supernatural creatures unless they travel to England's country. Though he would rather keep it quiet, this affinity for fantasy and never-ending sentiment affects other aspects of England. As it's in his nature to want people who will stay with him like his fairies always did, and want to believe in things even when his head tells him not to, England will always slip up and show his soft side to people he gets attached to one way or the other.
It is actually possible for England to seem fairly cool and composed, but only under certain circumstances. Though the rest of his emotions are pretty out of control, it's surprisingly not easy to scare England, probably because he's spent his entire life seeing weird shit like unicorns, fairies, and ghosts. He also has a responsible streak when it comes to handling serious issues, so when that comes out, he's definitely more the picture of the in-control gentleman he tries to create. However, this isn't necessarily an uncommon trait of his kind. When it comes to their people, a nation will do whatever it takes to keep them safe. When push truly comes to shove, England can put aside all the trivial bullshit to be a capable, if not entirely personable nation. This is something England had to learn over time, though, after learning the hard way that personal feelings can never come before a nation's people.
So, to summarise this all with a tired simile, he's kind of like an onion: he has layers upon layers of defence mechanisms, and he's apt to make people cry if the layers are cut into, but if you approach carefully and cook it all just right, even onions can taste okay. It's debatable whether it was worth all the tears to get them to that point, of course, but that's a matter of personal preference. England is a vitriolic little twat with an empire's worth of trust issues, but he does truly want friends and a world where he can afford to be an idealist, even if he's unlikely to admit this to himself.
Flavor Abilities: England will retain his connection to his people (only the English ones; the other constituent countries of the UK belong to his brothers), though it will be static from the moment he comes to Norfinbury. He won't feel any changes in his population, politics, or land. He will also keep his connection to the magic in his land, but he won't be able to utilise it or feel any changes in it. He also will not be able to sense any magic outside of what's in his land and his Sight for seeing the supernatural will be gone. His ability to discern another nation at a glance will remain, as well.
England | Axis Powers Hetalia (2/2)
RP Samples: one | two
ACCEPTED
A two-story A-frame house. The first floor has a living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms. The second floor has a master bedroom, master bathroom, and balcony. It looks like all of the windows were smashed in with something like a bat, but they didn't smash all the way and instead left countless spiderweb-like cracks in the windows, making it difficult to see out of them.
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