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Jun. 18th, 2013 03:17 amOOC Information:
Name: linda
Are you over 15? yeeee
Contact: Pb2Ag @ AIM | superfluously @ plurk
IC Information:
Name: Kingdom of Prussia | Julia Fuchs
Canon: Axis Powers: Hetalia
Age: over 800 years old | 29
Preincarnation Appearance: http://i.imgur.com/KTSRyNV.jpg
Any differences: plot twist: dude looks like a lady. except dude is actually a lady. blonde hair, blue eyes, a little overweight. incredibly short, with a scar on one cheek from falling or some shit as a kid. Let's go ahead and address this now: why a lady Prussia? I've got a few reasons:
1) Prussia represents the entirety of the nation of Prussia. 50% of that nation is women. Amazing concept, I know.
2) I think it would be ridiculously awesome to play out the conflict between modern day gender roles vs. 19th century sensibilities about women. Especially gender roles from Germany, which is, honestly, one of the most liberal nations in the world.
3) Prussia is represented by a man in canon (as are most other world-power nations) because, historically, men had power (and did everything they could to keep that power). So the nations themselves act for those in their society that have the most power-- Prussia's characterization is heavily influenced by Wilhelm II-esque Junkerism (land owning nobles involved with the military). I think it would be really interesting to address this discrepancy ICly, and honestly, a little bit OOCly too. Basically, forcing Prussia to acknowledge the oft-forgotten Prussians.
Preincarnated History: Hi, my name is Linda, and I know Prussian history. If you have had more than one conversation with me, you will be completely aware that I know Prussian history. If the name “Linda” isn’t synonymous with “Prussian history” in your vocabulary by this point, I'm going to be really, really sad. Just leave me to my tears. Go outside. I don’t want to look at my shame. I could link Wiki, but my historical summary is more fun and colorful, and honestly, I wrote half the Wikipedia entry on Prussia and most of the Prussian battles during the Seven Years War anyways.
For the sake of brevity and clarity, and because the Hetalia Wikia doesn’t actually have this information, I’ll only discuss Prussia in the context of Hetalia.
The first time we meet Prussia chronologically is through his diaries. Because he is sure to write an entry a day, he basically has entire rooms devoted to keeping up with that shit. So, we see him back during the 1220s (before 1225, when he gets kicked out of Hungary) as the Teutonic Order of Knights. Yes, I know their history, too. Hungary offers him a place to stay as long as he fights the Cumans who are threatening Burzenland. The Teutonic Order, without waiting for any bullshit advice or backup support kicks their pagan asses and declares Burzenland his own. Hungary is, obviously, not very happy. Through a variety of ridiculous exchanges, the Teutonic Order also finds out that Hungary is a girl (this is after being warned that one of his friends was a girl and being convinced it was Poland). His dreams conquest and awesomeness with friends are crushed.
The next time we see him is at the battle of Grunwald (1410), where the Teutons are about to crush the pagan lands of Poland-Lithuania. Unfortunately, at the last second, his butt is furiously kicked by Lithuania, and he hides away in one of his many fortresses to wait out a siege. Soon after this, there is another comic (after the Teuton lands are divided into Ducal Prussia and Royal Prussia), where Prussia helps out Hungary before absconding due to holy shit he can see her boobs that is so gross.
After that, Prussia’s not around until the War of Austrian Succession (1740), where he, France, and Spain kick some serious Austrian ass. It is a beautiful day for the entire world, and after stealing Austria’s most profitable lands and getting his butt slightly kicked by Hungary, Prussia holla holla get outies the war, keeping Silesia. Austria and Hungary are extremely displeased and try to win it back only a few years later during the Seven Years War, but with Frederick the Great’s brilliant military tactics and Prussia’s general asskicking military, they fail.
After this, Prussia’s not around until World War II, which is past the point I’ll be playing him from. So yeah w/e.
Reincarnated History:
She was born in southern West Germany (Freiburg im Breisgau, to be exact) in 1985 to a happy, but lower working class family with five other siblings. Her family was a bunch of hippies-- they lived outside the city in vans that had been modified as homes, and even as American tourist groups began buying up the neighborhood, they remained where they were. As the youngest, her parents were far too busy dealing with the more troublesome children and working, so they had little time to pressure their daughter unnecessarily. In addition to this, yet again, hippies, so as long as their daughter respected the environment and did something good for society, everything was okay. Nothing existed outside of "do your best," and "please be able to support yourself." Which meant that she had a lot of freedom to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. Her siblings, ranging from 10 to 2 years older than her, were outgoing and extroverted; as she grew up, she realized that they could speak for her, and well, she didn't need to be all that extroverted, honestly. So she was mostly left to her own devices to develop in whatever way she saw fit. It helps that the German schooling system allows for people to remain in college for ridiculously low fees (uni is almost always free, and you get lowered rates on EVERYTHING) and for a ridiculous amount of time (there are stories of people with four or five Phds taking advantage of the system until they were in their 40s). She attended Freiburg Universität for undergrad, Leipzig for her Masters. She took a few years off between undergrad and grad to support herself and live on her own, so she's a bit older than the other Ph.D. students she'll encounter.
From a young age, she knew she liked learning languages. It started with the fall of the Berlin Wall-- while both East and West Germans spoke the same language, Julia found that their vocabularies and cultural experiences were different, which caused a lot of conflict. It didn't help that the East Germans felt that the West Germans had practically occupied their land and forced reunification on them. Later, when the American tourist groups began buying up all the land around where her family was squatting, she found that there was a cultural disconnect between the tourist companies and the Germans living there-- one that was impossible to navigate with the differences in language. After experiencing these political realities, Julia realized that she wanted to help multicultural groups overcome their differences. The best way, she found (after having to pick her first language to learn while in school), was through being a translator.
From the mandatory language classes in gymnasium to graduate school, she was able to scrape by and learn five languages: Dutch, French, Czech, Hindi, and Turkish. Surprisingly, she never learned the lingua franca, English, until now. There are a few reasons for this: 1) most students choose English as their first language to learn while in the German schooling system-- Julia couldn't stand being less competent than her peers when she eventually started trying to learn English, and 2) she felt that everyone else knew English, and that it would help her to learn the less popular languages. While she knew that last point was completely unrealistic, she clung to it, mainly to avoid having to deal with the first point.
In 2012, she was offered a studying abroad scholarship funded by the U.N. searching for potential translators. Because, hey, yeah, she knew a lot of the languages that they needed translators for. Unfortunately, her weakness was English. They found that instead of hiring six people to speak all the languages she knew, it'd be easier to just get her to fucking learn English so she could be a super useful translator. Not surprisingly, when the UN offers you an education, you accept the fuck out of it. After reviewing many US universities to receive her doctorate at, she chose Locke City.
On the side, she works at Fabric Kingdom with Victor Dubois-- yes, I have permission from Lavvy. It helps keep up the costs for her apartment and other things.
First Echo: I'm going to be boring and say she was here for the pinkass flash of light and got her first echo that way.
Prussia is a pretty damn militaristic nation-- while I can argue with you for a million hours about the differences between militaristic and social militarism, I will readily agree that Prussia was involved in a metric fuckton of wars-- which is illustrated pretty successfully in Hetalia. So, with this echo, Julia's become familiar with early types of guns-- we're talking from the arquebus (first guns) from the 1400s to the Zündnadelgewehr, which helped win the Franco-Prussian war. Add a bayonette for double the fury. Not surprisingly, Julia's unaware of this talent. For now.
Preincarnation Personality:
Prussia’s enthusiastic about the things that interest him. As a kid, he was pretty enthusiastic about Christianity and getting land. As he grew up and settled as Ducal and Royal Prussia, he was pretty fucking enthusiastic about Christianity and getting land. As the Kingdom of Prussia, he was ridiculously and embarrassingly enthusiastic about Christianity and getting land, with the major emphasis on land (considering the results of the Thirty Years War). While most of the conflicts in Prussian history stem from either stealing land or defending various forms of Christianity, it all boils down to one key enthusiasm: fighting. Prussia loves fighting. If fighting were a woman, he would marry her. It's less the rewards from fighting and more the actual fight itself that brings him ridiculous amounts of joy. For example, look to the War of Austrian Succession or the Seven Years War. There was a general conviction from most of Europe that there was no way a tiny, backward nation like Prussia could win in a war against the Hapsburgs and their allies. Consider how shitty Prussia was at the time—a scattered land with little unity, little numbers of citizens, little natural resources, and little power. Plot twist: he won. Twice. While the damages to the Prussian nation were ridiculously high (massive damage to lands, 10% of population killed) and later led to its pathetic defeat come Napoleon, the victory of winning Silesia from Austria wasn't as big a deal as was establishing Prussia as one of the great powers of Europe and the actual warfare itself. Wow, that was a terribly written sentence. He’s the type of guy who’d grin at you with two shiners and go back for more.
While he tends to make rash decisions, especially when excited, Prussia’s smart. He understands how to best utilize his own abilities in battle, and how to exploit his enemies’ weaknesses. We see this throughout history, as Prussia was always crazy innovative when it came to warfare, either by obsessively observing other nations during peacetime and stealing their good ideas, or through massive advances in how to organize military camps (which was adapted by watching American traveling rodeo shows), or even massive leaps in technological shit (like the Dreyse needle gun used during the 7 Weeks War). Even diplomatically, while Prussia has had massive failures (like the entire 30 Years War), he can be pretty clever (like gaining Kingdomhood from the Holy Roman Empire by waiting until they needed his help during the War of Spanish Succession). Unfortunately, just because he understands how to do things and how to be successful, it doesn’t mean that he always wins. In fact, because he believes too much in his own abilities, he often goes after targets who are simply too strong. In the 1740s, Frederick the Great invaded one of the strongest empires in Europe for their most industrious land. While all the Silesian wars were considered successes, Ol’ Fritz lost nearly as many battles as he won. We just don’t talk about that so much. Shut up, Hapsburg sympathizers. Sure, Prussia’ll use all the right moves with the terrain and materials he’s been given to work with, but, often times, his own limits will come into play, resulting in failure. Limits that he often over looks, like transportation costs and capabilities or general military population.
Prussia also has a massive ego. Massive. The size of several German states consumed to create the North German Confederation. And he likes to rub it in anyone and everyone’s face he comes across. However, his ego is well deserved, if his military record is any indication. Even when faced with defeat, he doesn’t despair. Prussia will work his best to face whatever challenges confront his people, and he’ll keep facing that shit until he wins. No matter how many times it may take. Immediately after Napoleon embarrassingly defeated Prussia in 1806 and the establishment of the Duchy of Warsaw (ruled by Napoleon’s brother, Jerome), you had massive reform movements throughout Prussia, covering education, citizenship, military, and government structure. Reforms that, previously, were nearly impossible to achieve due to Junker opposition and uncreative monarchs. This led to Prussia’s rapid recovery (after the embarrassing loss at Jena) and the eventual defeat of Napoleon in 1812 and 1815 (which was entirely because of Prussian influence, regardless of what the British will tell you). German stubbornness is infamous.
Unfortunately, this means he’s kinda a jerk. A notorious jerk. Especially in the later 1800s, where he basically becomes the big bully of Europe, through provoking wars with Denmark, Austria, and France. Especially considering how conservative he is later in the 1800s, too. Being the only one to try and uphold the Concert of Europe, Prussia crushed rebellions like a total asshole during the 1830s and kinda dicked around with the 1848 revolution, while ultimately ignoring most people’s calls for reform. Typically, in history, we refer to this as the Sonderweg, or the other direction that Germany went politically, instead of democracy. Basically, white Protestant male in power. whoop whoop.
Any differences: My children, bear with me. There is a plethora of difference, and we will be going through each and every one of them.
To begin, she isn't a nation. This means a lot of things, especially when it comes to individuality. Nations represent millions of people-- their hopes, dreams, etc etc. They act as an egregore, or an autonomous psychic entity brought into existence by the collective thoughts, feelings, beliefs, policies, traditions of a group of people. Which, as you might have guessed, means they have little individual freedom-- Prussia, being a more conservative, traditionalist country, could probably argue that every action he takes is an extension of his entire population-- that he has no free will, but that he also doesn't actually care about having free will, because his entire existence is dependent on his people. While Prussia is merely the physical entity created to enact their will on internationally.
Julia, thankfully, does not have this burden. She had ridiculous sums of freedom in her life-- due to her parents busying themselves with troublesome siblings. Which also means she's now where near as authority loving or authoritarian as Prussia is. While her family wasn't the wealthiest, they had enough money to live in comfort, and Julia was smart enough to pursue her dreams. While she inherits her ridiculously hard work ethic from her preincarnation self, it's not because it's a character trait of the German people. Instead, it's because Julia found that hard work and punctuality help her achieve what she wants out of life while forcing people to take her seriously.
She also hasn't grown up fighting. While Prussia had to battle the shit out of everything that moved since day one, Julia lives in the 21st century. Communication, politeness, and personal skills are what win the day, not brute force. Unfortunately for Julia, though, she lacks Prussia's aggressiveness. She and Prussia both believe that merit is necessary beyond everything else, but Prussia's sure to shove his merit into everyone's faces while laughing about his superiority. Julia's more the type to work diligently and quietly until someone notices, which, as we all know, doesn't actually achieve results in the real world.
Julia is also incredibly soft spoken and generally pretty damn sweet. She's from a quiet, small city in southern Germany; it means she's not used to the hustle and bustle of a bigger city. This means she's more likely to shy away from crowded areas, loud noises, traffic, etc etc. Her poor skills in English also mean that in an American setting, she's a bit of a nervous wreck. She wants to be able to speak any language perfectly, and because of that perfectionist trait, she can't stand to fuck up. Since learning a language requires a large sum of fucking up, she finds that her nerves get to her whenever she tries speaking. This leads to her failing miserably at spoken conversation, despite the fact that her writing is pretty decent. It also makes her seem significantly more shy than she actually is.
Unlike Prussia, Julia isn't guided by strong morals or convictions. Prussia was raised strictly Catholic, and even after the 30 Years War, where the northern German regions became prominently Protestant, morality/Christianity was a Huge Fucking Deal. Considering the rapid de-Christianization of Europe throughout the latter half of the 20th century, it's no surprise that Julia's never been to a church service. Her parents disagreed with the philosophy behind organization religion, and while it would be impossible for Julia to live in Freiburg without visiting the market outside the old, medieval church, she'd have no reason to attend a service. Now, I'm not conflating morality with religion-- that'd be dumb. But I am saying that Prussia links the two and values them as two sides of the same coin. On the morality stand-point, Julia follows her own form of morality. While she'd be unwilling to do anything that would actively hurt another, she's willing to be sneaky and just a little bit manipulative to get what she wants. White-lie manipulative, not straight out crazy-life lies.
Abilities: Prussia has a connection to his people and his land. If his society is in turmoil, he’ll be feeling the effects. If his vital regions are invaded, he feels the pain. If he happens to lose 1/3 of his population in a random war, he gets fucked over. It’s not a pleasant experience. However, because he's been disconnected from his nation, and plot twist, is now in a human, lady body, this power is no longer applicable.
However, he’s basically immortal, as long as his culture still stands, which translates to being really fucking hard to kill in the context of the game. He’ll recover from wounds more quickly than your average human, he’ll hit harder than your average human, and he’ll be able to drink more alcohol than your average human.
Roleplay Sample – Third Person:
It’s a familiar scene: Bismarck at his desk; Prussia watching. Silence. Somewhere behind him, he can hear a grandfather clock ticking the seconds away one by one. But he dare not move. He dare not speak. He dare not break his boss’s concentration. So he continues in silence, mentally reviewing his plans.
It was all to build an empire, Bismarck had said. Which, in all honesty, was just repeating what Prussia had been thinking for half a century. Starting with the Zollverein, and later the North German Confederation—it had been surprisingly easy! Austria hadn’t stood a chance (not with that crumbling empire filled with unrest and wimps). Nor had Denmark. And now, it was France’s turn. The final obstacle to overcome. There was just one tiny little problem.
“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS ABOUT?!” Rewind to five hours ago. The new (or old) scene: Prussia, red cheeked, shouting, waving a newspaper frantically, a bit of sweat dripping from his cheek (he ran all the way here). Throwing open the door to reveal a calm Bismarck, waiting for him.
“A dispatch from the King, published in the local papers. He's currently in Ems—“
Bismarck couldn’t finish his sentence.
“I know that! But what’s all this shit about that goddamned French Count? He ambushed our King!” The red spread from Prussia’s cheeks to the tips of his ears as he waved the front page of the Berlin newspaper in his hand emphatically. He wasn’t just angry— no, no, that’d be too simple. He could control his temper well enough in most circumstances. It was worse than anger; it was outrage. His pride had been hurt. The French Count had been making demands of his King (soon to be Kaiser) in a place where he wasn’t present. It was a completely underhanded diplomatic move and an insult. The French bastard knew it.
“Sit down, Prussia.” Bismarck was obviously thinking. Prussia knew the man enough to realize when he had an idea. So he placed the newspaper in front of his boss and sat. And waited. And waited. And five hours later, he was still waiting while Bismarck worked.
He was calmer now. Sitting quietly gave him time to reflect (once he got past the initial boredom). Like Bismarck, he now saw the advantages of this insult. The ways it could be manipulated. France was the final obstacle to an empire, after all. The last hurdle to overcome. This insult was just what they needed to act as victims for the upcoming war (the final war).
Roleplay Sample - Network:
[ It's a small, plump girl nervously glancing at the camera. One hand twirls her hair endlessly, while the other stiffly holds the iphone. It takes her a while to speak, but when she does, her voice is endlessly soft, accented heavily. ]
Um... Hello, someone. I am not understanding... the making of film here... [ Her hand moves from her hair to try and indicate the screen. After a few moments, the English comes to her: ] on small-internet. Netverk? I had numbers, and it put me here? Who does make this? I... Sorry, sorry. But...
[ It seems she's losing her nerve. If it was possible for her voice to go quieter, it does. ]
My English isn't so good. I only wanted to say hello. And, um... Ask what this means? The netverk and... Sorry. [ Hand back to twirling her hair. It's obvious she's too nervous to continue. She glances away briefly before turning her video function off. ]
Any Questions? n/a; thank you for your time!!!
Name: linda
Are you over 15? yeeee
Contact: Pb2Ag @ AIM | superfluously @ plurk
IC Information:
Name: Kingdom of Prussia | Julia Fuchs
Canon: Axis Powers: Hetalia
Age: over 800 years old | 29
Preincarnation Appearance: http://i.imgur.com/KTSRyNV.jpg
Any differences: plot twist: dude looks like a lady. except dude is actually a lady. blonde hair, blue eyes, a little overweight. incredibly short, with a scar on one cheek from falling or some shit as a kid. Let's go ahead and address this now: why a lady Prussia? I've got a few reasons:
1) Prussia represents the entirety of the nation of Prussia. 50% of that nation is women. Amazing concept, I know.
2) I think it would be ridiculously awesome to play out the conflict between modern day gender roles vs. 19th century sensibilities about women. Especially gender roles from Germany, which is, honestly, one of the most liberal nations in the world.
3) Prussia is represented by a man in canon (as are most other world-power nations) because, historically, men had power (and did everything they could to keep that power). So the nations themselves act for those in their society that have the most power-- Prussia's characterization is heavily influenced by Wilhelm II-esque Junkerism (land owning nobles involved with the military). I think it would be really interesting to address this discrepancy ICly, and honestly, a little bit OOCly too. Basically, forcing Prussia to acknowledge the oft-forgotten Prussians.
Preincarnated History: Hi, my name is Linda, and I know Prussian history. If you have had more than one conversation with me, you will be completely aware that I know Prussian history. If the name “Linda” isn’t synonymous with “Prussian history” in your vocabulary by this point, I'm going to be really, really sad. Just leave me to my tears. Go outside. I don’t want to look at my shame. I could link Wiki, but my historical summary is more fun and colorful, and honestly, I wrote half the Wikipedia entry on Prussia and most of the Prussian battles during the Seven Years War anyways.
For the sake of brevity and clarity, and because the Hetalia Wikia doesn’t actually have this information, I’ll only discuss Prussia in the context of Hetalia.
The first time we meet Prussia chronologically is through his diaries. Because he is sure to write an entry a day, he basically has entire rooms devoted to keeping up with that shit. So, we see him back during the 1220s (before 1225, when he gets kicked out of Hungary) as the Teutonic Order of Knights. Yes, I know their history, too. Hungary offers him a place to stay as long as he fights the Cumans who are threatening Burzenland. The Teutonic Order, without waiting for any bullshit advice or backup support kicks their pagan asses and declares Burzenland his own. Hungary is, obviously, not very happy. Through a variety of ridiculous exchanges, the Teutonic Order also finds out that Hungary is a girl (this is after being warned that one of his friends was a girl and being convinced it was Poland). His dreams conquest and awesomeness with friends are crushed.
The next time we see him is at the battle of Grunwald (1410), where the Teutons are about to crush the pagan lands of Poland-Lithuania. Unfortunately, at the last second, his butt is furiously kicked by Lithuania, and he hides away in one of his many fortresses to wait out a siege. Soon after this, there is another comic (after the Teuton lands are divided into Ducal Prussia and Royal Prussia), where Prussia helps out Hungary before absconding due to holy shit he can see her boobs that is so gross.
After that, Prussia’s not around until the War of Austrian Succession (1740), where he, France, and Spain kick some serious Austrian ass. It is a beautiful day for the entire world, and after stealing Austria’s most profitable lands and getting his butt slightly kicked by Hungary, Prussia holla holla get outies the war, keeping Silesia. Austria and Hungary are extremely displeased and try to win it back only a few years later during the Seven Years War, but with Frederick the Great’s brilliant military tactics and Prussia’s general asskicking military, they fail.
After this, Prussia’s not around until World War II, which is past the point I’ll be playing him from. So yeah w/e.
Reincarnated History:
She was born in southern West Germany (Freiburg im Breisgau, to be exact) in 1985 to a happy, but lower working class family with five other siblings. Her family was a bunch of hippies-- they lived outside the city in vans that had been modified as homes, and even as American tourist groups began buying up the neighborhood, they remained where they were. As the youngest, her parents were far too busy dealing with the more troublesome children and working, so they had little time to pressure their daughter unnecessarily. In addition to this, yet again, hippies, so as long as their daughter respected the environment and did something good for society, everything was okay. Nothing existed outside of "do your best," and "please be able to support yourself." Which meant that she had a lot of freedom to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. Her siblings, ranging from 10 to 2 years older than her, were outgoing and extroverted; as she grew up, she realized that they could speak for her, and well, she didn't need to be all that extroverted, honestly. So she was mostly left to her own devices to develop in whatever way she saw fit. It helps that the German schooling system allows for people to remain in college for ridiculously low fees (uni is almost always free, and you get lowered rates on EVERYTHING) and for a ridiculous amount of time (there are stories of people with four or five Phds taking advantage of the system until they were in their 40s). She attended Freiburg Universität for undergrad, Leipzig for her Masters. She took a few years off between undergrad and grad to support herself and live on her own, so she's a bit older than the other Ph.D. students she'll encounter.
From a young age, she knew she liked learning languages. It started with the fall of the Berlin Wall-- while both East and West Germans spoke the same language, Julia found that their vocabularies and cultural experiences were different, which caused a lot of conflict. It didn't help that the East Germans felt that the West Germans had practically occupied their land and forced reunification on them. Later, when the American tourist groups began buying up all the land around where her family was squatting, she found that there was a cultural disconnect between the tourist companies and the Germans living there-- one that was impossible to navigate with the differences in language. After experiencing these political realities, Julia realized that she wanted to help multicultural groups overcome their differences. The best way, she found (after having to pick her first language to learn while in school), was through being a translator.
From the mandatory language classes in gymnasium to graduate school, she was able to scrape by and learn five languages: Dutch, French, Czech, Hindi, and Turkish. Surprisingly, she never learned the lingua franca, English, until now. There are a few reasons for this: 1) most students choose English as their first language to learn while in the German schooling system-- Julia couldn't stand being less competent than her peers when she eventually started trying to learn English, and 2) she felt that everyone else knew English, and that it would help her to learn the less popular languages. While she knew that last point was completely unrealistic, she clung to it, mainly to avoid having to deal with the first point.
In 2012, she was offered a studying abroad scholarship funded by the U.N. searching for potential translators. Because, hey, yeah, she knew a lot of the languages that they needed translators for. Unfortunately, her weakness was English. They found that instead of hiring six people to speak all the languages she knew, it'd be easier to just get her to fucking learn English so she could be a super useful translator. Not surprisingly, when the UN offers you an education, you accept the fuck out of it. After reviewing many US universities to receive her doctorate at, she chose Locke City.
On the side, she works at Fabric Kingdom with Victor Dubois-- yes, I have permission from Lavvy. It helps keep up the costs for her apartment and other things.
First Echo: I'm going to be boring and say she was here for the pinkass flash of light and got her first echo that way.
Prussia is a pretty damn militaristic nation-- while I can argue with you for a million hours about the differences between militaristic and social militarism, I will readily agree that Prussia was involved in a metric fuckton of wars-- which is illustrated pretty successfully in Hetalia. So, with this echo, Julia's become familiar with early types of guns-- we're talking from the arquebus (first guns) from the 1400s to the Zündnadelgewehr, which helped win the Franco-Prussian war. Add a bayonette for double the fury. Not surprisingly, Julia's unaware of this talent. For now.
Preincarnation Personality:
Prussia’s enthusiastic about the things that interest him. As a kid, he was pretty enthusiastic about Christianity and getting land. As he grew up and settled as Ducal and Royal Prussia, he was pretty fucking enthusiastic about Christianity and getting land. As the Kingdom of Prussia, he was ridiculously and embarrassingly enthusiastic about Christianity and getting land, with the major emphasis on land (considering the results of the Thirty Years War). While most of the conflicts in Prussian history stem from either stealing land or defending various forms of Christianity, it all boils down to one key enthusiasm: fighting. Prussia loves fighting. If fighting were a woman, he would marry her. It's less the rewards from fighting and more the actual fight itself that brings him ridiculous amounts of joy. For example, look to the War of Austrian Succession or the Seven Years War. There was a general conviction from most of Europe that there was no way a tiny, backward nation like Prussia could win in a war against the Hapsburgs and their allies. Consider how shitty Prussia was at the time—a scattered land with little unity, little numbers of citizens, little natural resources, and little power. Plot twist: he won. Twice. While the damages to the Prussian nation were ridiculously high (massive damage to lands, 10% of population killed) and later led to its pathetic defeat come Napoleon, the victory of winning Silesia from Austria wasn't as big a deal as was establishing Prussia as one of the great powers of Europe and the actual warfare itself. Wow, that was a terribly written sentence. He’s the type of guy who’d grin at you with two shiners and go back for more.
While he tends to make rash decisions, especially when excited, Prussia’s smart. He understands how to best utilize his own abilities in battle, and how to exploit his enemies’ weaknesses. We see this throughout history, as Prussia was always crazy innovative when it came to warfare, either by obsessively observing other nations during peacetime and stealing their good ideas, or through massive advances in how to organize military camps (which was adapted by watching American traveling rodeo shows), or even massive leaps in technological shit (like the Dreyse needle gun used during the 7 Weeks War). Even diplomatically, while Prussia has had massive failures (like the entire 30 Years War), he can be pretty clever (like gaining Kingdomhood from the Holy Roman Empire by waiting until they needed his help during the War of Spanish Succession). Unfortunately, just because he understands how to do things and how to be successful, it doesn’t mean that he always wins. In fact, because he believes too much in his own abilities, he often goes after targets who are simply too strong. In the 1740s, Frederick the Great invaded one of the strongest empires in Europe for their most industrious land. While all the Silesian wars were considered successes, Ol’ Fritz lost nearly as many battles as he won. We just don’t talk about that so much. Shut up, Hapsburg sympathizers. Sure, Prussia’ll use all the right moves with the terrain and materials he’s been given to work with, but, often times, his own limits will come into play, resulting in failure. Limits that he often over looks, like transportation costs and capabilities or general military population.
Prussia also has a massive ego. Massive. The size of several German states consumed to create the North German Confederation. And he likes to rub it in anyone and everyone’s face he comes across. However, his ego is well deserved, if his military record is any indication. Even when faced with defeat, he doesn’t despair. Prussia will work his best to face whatever challenges confront his people, and he’ll keep facing that shit until he wins. No matter how many times it may take. Immediately after Napoleon embarrassingly defeated Prussia in 1806 and the establishment of the Duchy of Warsaw (ruled by Napoleon’s brother, Jerome), you had massive reform movements throughout Prussia, covering education, citizenship, military, and government structure. Reforms that, previously, were nearly impossible to achieve due to Junker opposition and uncreative monarchs. This led to Prussia’s rapid recovery (after the embarrassing loss at Jena) and the eventual defeat of Napoleon in 1812 and 1815 (which was entirely because of Prussian influence, regardless of what the British will tell you). German stubbornness is infamous.
Unfortunately, this means he’s kinda a jerk. A notorious jerk. Especially in the later 1800s, where he basically becomes the big bully of Europe, through provoking wars with Denmark, Austria, and France. Especially considering how conservative he is later in the 1800s, too. Being the only one to try and uphold the Concert of Europe, Prussia crushed rebellions like a total asshole during the 1830s and kinda dicked around with the 1848 revolution, while ultimately ignoring most people’s calls for reform. Typically, in history, we refer to this as the Sonderweg, or the other direction that Germany went politically, instead of democracy. Basically, white Protestant male in power. whoop whoop.
Any differences: My children, bear with me. There is a plethora of difference, and we will be going through each and every one of them.
To begin, she isn't a nation. This means a lot of things, especially when it comes to individuality. Nations represent millions of people-- their hopes, dreams, etc etc. They act as an egregore, or an autonomous psychic entity brought into existence by the collective thoughts, feelings, beliefs, policies, traditions of a group of people. Which, as you might have guessed, means they have little individual freedom-- Prussia, being a more conservative, traditionalist country, could probably argue that every action he takes is an extension of his entire population-- that he has no free will, but that he also doesn't actually care about having free will, because his entire existence is dependent on his people. While Prussia is merely the physical entity created to enact their will on internationally.
Julia, thankfully, does not have this burden. She had ridiculous sums of freedom in her life-- due to her parents busying themselves with troublesome siblings. Which also means she's now where near as authority loving or authoritarian as Prussia is. While her family wasn't the wealthiest, they had enough money to live in comfort, and Julia was smart enough to pursue her dreams. While she inherits her ridiculously hard work ethic from her preincarnation self, it's not because it's a character trait of the German people. Instead, it's because Julia found that hard work and punctuality help her achieve what she wants out of life while forcing people to take her seriously.
She also hasn't grown up fighting. While Prussia had to battle the shit out of everything that moved since day one, Julia lives in the 21st century. Communication, politeness, and personal skills are what win the day, not brute force. Unfortunately for Julia, though, she lacks Prussia's aggressiveness. She and Prussia both believe that merit is necessary beyond everything else, but Prussia's sure to shove his merit into everyone's faces while laughing about his superiority. Julia's more the type to work diligently and quietly until someone notices, which, as we all know, doesn't actually achieve results in the real world.
Julia is also incredibly soft spoken and generally pretty damn sweet. She's from a quiet, small city in southern Germany; it means she's not used to the hustle and bustle of a bigger city. This means she's more likely to shy away from crowded areas, loud noises, traffic, etc etc. Her poor skills in English also mean that in an American setting, she's a bit of a nervous wreck. She wants to be able to speak any language perfectly, and because of that perfectionist trait, she can't stand to fuck up. Since learning a language requires a large sum of fucking up, she finds that her nerves get to her whenever she tries speaking. This leads to her failing miserably at spoken conversation, despite the fact that her writing is pretty decent. It also makes her seem significantly more shy than she actually is.
Unlike Prussia, Julia isn't guided by strong morals or convictions. Prussia was raised strictly Catholic, and even after the 30 Years War, where the northern German regions became prominently Protestant, morality/Christianity was a Huge Fucking Deal. Considering the rapid de-Christianization of Europe throughout the latter half of the 20th century, it's no surprise that Julia's never been to a church service. Her parents disagreed with the philosophy behind organization religion, and while it would be impossible for Julia to live in Freiburg without visiting the market outside the old, medieval church, she'd have no reason to attend a service. Now, I'm not conflating morality with religion-- that'd be dumb. But I am saying that Prussia links the two and values them as two sides of the same coin. On the morality stand-point, Julia follows her own form of morality. While she'd be unwilling to do anything that would actively hurt another, she's willing to be sneaky and just a little bit manipulative to get what she wants. White-lie manipulative, not straight out crazy-life lies.
Abilities: Prussia has a connection to his people and his land. If his society is in turmoil, he’ll be feeling the effects. If his vital regions are invaded, he feels the pain. If he happens to lose 1/3 of his population in a random war, he gets fucked over. It’s not a pleasant experience. However, because he's been disconnected from his nation, and plot twist, is now in a human, lady body, this power is no longer applicable.
However, he’s basically immortal, as long as his culture still stands, which translates to being really fucking hard to kill in the context of the game. He’ll recover from wounds more quickly than your average human, he’ll hit harder than your average human, and he’ll be able to drink more alcohol than your average human.
Roleplay Sample – Third Person:
It’s a familiar scene: Bismarck at his desk; Prussia watching. Silence. Somewhere behind him, he can hear a grandfather clock ticking the seconds away one by one. But he dare not move. He dare not speak. He dare not break his boss’s concentration. So he continues in silence, mentally reviewing his plans.
It was all to build an empire, Bismarck had said. Which, in all honesty, was just repeating what Prussia had been thinking for half a century. Starting with the Zollverein, and later the North German Confederation—it had been surprisingly easy! Austria hadn’t stood a chance (not with that crumbling empire filled with unrest and wimps). Nor had Denmark. And now, it was France’s turn. The final obstacle to overcome. There was just one tiny little problem.
“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS ABOUT?!” Rewind to five hours ago. The new (or old) scene: Prussia, red cheeked, shouting, waving a newspaper frantically, a bit of sweat dripping from his cheek (he ran all the way here). Throwing open the door to reveal a calm Bismarck, waiting for him.
“A dispatch from the King, published in the local papers. He's currently in Ems—“
Bismarck couldn’t finish his sentence.
“I know that! But what’s all this shit about that goddamned French Count? He ambushed our King!” The red spread from Prussia’s cheeks to the tips of his ears as he waved the front page of the Berlin newspaper in his hand emphatically. He wasn’t just angry— no, no, that’d be too simple. He could control his temper well enough in most circumstances. It was worse than anger; it was outrage. His pride had been hurt. The French Count had been making demands of his King (soon to be Kaiser) in a place where he wasn’t present. It was a completely underhanded diplomatic move and an insult. The French bastard knew it.
“Sit down, Prussia.” Bismarck was obviously thinking. Prussia knew the man enough to realize when he had an idea. So he placed the newspaper in front of his boss and sat. And waited. And waited. And five hours later, he was still waiting while Bismarck worked.
He was calmer now. Sitting quietly gave him time to reflect (once he got past the initial boredom). Like Bismarck, he now saw the advantages of this insult. The ways it could be manipulated. France was the final obstacle to an empire, after all. The last hurdle to overcome. This insult was just what they needed to act as victims for the upcoming war (the final war).
Roleplay Sample - Network:
[ It's a small, plump girl nervously glancing at the camera. One hand twirls her hair endlessly, while the other stiffly holds the iphone. It takes her a while to speak, but when she does, her voice is endlessly soft, accented heavily. ]
Um... Hello, someone. I am not understanding... the making of film here... [ Her hand moves from her hair to try and indicate the screen. After a few moments, the English comes to her: ] on small-internet. Netverk? I had numbers, and it put me here? Who does make this? I... Sorry, sorry. But...
[ It seems she's losing her nerve. If it was possible for her voice to go quieter, it does. ]
My English isn't so good. I only wanted to say hello. And, um... Ask what this means? The netverk and... Sorry. [ Hand back to twirling her hair. It's obvious she's too nervous to continue. She glances away briefly before turning her video function off. ]
Any Questions? n/a; thank you for your time!!!
