[APH] Fandom grumping

[yuuago]

Man... sifting through Hetalia fanfic just reminds me of one of the reasons I faded out of this fandom in the first place.

I can't stand AUs, human names, or epithets, especially nationality-based epithets. I never read work that contains these things - except in the rare case when it's part of an event that I'm in. I'd ban AUs from my upcoming fest if I didn't know I would be shooting myself in the foot by doing so.

The new Ao3 exclusion filters help a bit, but there's so much untagged stuff that it only gets rid of a fraction of it.

SSSS fandom has its faults, and compared to APH it's super small, but one of the things I'm grateful for is that a lot of the fic is at least partly canon-based, and the majority of it is written in a way that I don't find obnoxious.

Comments

[rugbrod]

Damn, is this a relatable feeling. People like what they like and I get that it won't always be to my tastes, but lots of human AUs particularly are so baffling imo. Most media is about regular mortal humans, what's the point even of being into Hetalia if you're gonna make them not nations anymore?!

[yuuago]

YES it's like... okay, you have this pairing with hundreds of years of history, they went through so much shit, it's PART OF THE APPEAL.... And yet you want them to be mundane ordinary people (who sound like Americans even though the writer claims they aren't meant to).

/throws up hands

If everyone tagged their stuff consistently! I wish!!!

[kanadka]

This is the daily Hetalia feel for me (I say, having posted something that was an AU in the past two months - but that was actually written a few years ago). I don't mind human AUs but the human names have been bothering me for awhile too. I find it's genuinely jarring to see them used in conjunction with nation names. ("And then Canada said to Ivan -" oh really? all of Canada? to one person? I mean I'm being facetious.... but also not being facetious... :'D)

Buuut it's possibly the case that I'm just hanging out too often on the writer's discord which skews young and so these people think epithets are Okay (they're not) and human names are better than nation names (they're not) because you can fool yourself into thinking they're just people and not nations (now where's the fun in that? If you're going to go metaphorical nation, go full in!)

[yuuago]

It's definitely a possibility that you're hanging out there too much. It's okay in doses, but after a while I find that it's a little bit... exhausting. Too many children! With tastes that I don't agree with!

Re: human names, occasionally I run into a thing that works for me, but it's rare. There was one long fic that had a tiny section with Sweden and Norway and... it wasn't outright stated, but they were kind of circling around the idea of how one of them took a human name, and the other didn't, and what that might say about how they saw themselves. Or something. It's been ages since I read it, can't even remember what it was, but I found the idea interesting.

But when human names are just used for the sake of it? No thanks!

As for AUs... I admit to enjoying a handful, but again, very rare. And in those cases, it was because there was a lot of plot and I was basically reading it like original fiction. :|a Come to think of it, there was one I never commented on, I should do that....

[rugbrod]

aaaaagh yeah it's part of why I haven't read any fic in ages tbh. I should.... get back to that and just be more selective.
Admittedly, I've enjoyed some human AUs & concepts where they do the work of making relationships & events parallel history, but if it's only their personalities that carry over, well, they're basically just OCs at that point. Which is fine, just not what I'm seeking in Hetalia fanworks!