#gonna add I’m not an Asian fan I am english/irish but alwaysss gonna listen to Asian fans with how to portray those characters

[disacurveball]

man you really articulated my own problems with how fandom treats Kiku...sorry for venting a little but: thank you for acknowledging this as a fellow AsaKiku fan because sometimes I feel so alone as an Asian AsaKiku-er who admittedly likes a more calculating take on the alliance (especially since that alliance was built on my country's colonization by britain 😔). i don't wanna vague so much but it's real uncomfortable seeing historical hetalia fic where the other characters are roughened and calculating empires, yet it's all nooooo Kiku is actually a blushing, shy, gentle bumbling boi who could never be imperialist, it's all his government, all he just wants to be sweet and happy with England! he never thinks about other Asians, but only about England!...excuse me.

it's such a disservice to separate Kiku from his other Asian relationships too, yet i see people doing that. and this soft boi Kiku so often is employed to downplay British imperialism too by erasing any tensions he'd have with Arthur (or any version of England) over British imperialism in Asia. I don't want yellow peril villains but going too far to the other end is just another brand of awful infantilizing orientalism. if people don't want to grapple with meaner versions of the characters at all in their ships, i genuinely say...go and write a human AU. the Anglo-Japanese Alliance era is soaked in imperialism from top to bottom and people who aren't asian really gotta respect asian history and understand kiku and his relationships with other asians first if they want to play in that.

THANK YOU for your perspective anon. Genuinely such hard agree on everything you are saying here.

Kiku is such a character I feel like you really need to know what’s up before you go to write him, because there’s so much cultural and historical weight behind him. Glad someone else in the Asakiku niche is thinking this too, because as much as I love that ship, I’ve definitely seen some…questionable content surrounding those too; as someone who also prefers a more calculated take on the alliance.

And you are so correct that it’s such a disservice to separate Kiku from his relationships with the other Asian nations. Especially also when people don’t give them the complexity they deserve. I’ll never understand the people who treat hetalia relationships as blood family relations…but especially with the Asian nations that’s um. Oh that’s not— in the sense that—

Let! Kiku! Be! A! Complex! Character!

#gonna add I’m not an Asian fan I am english/irish but alwaysss gonna listen to Asian fans with how to portray those characters #my love of and characterization of Kiku stems from both my historical interests and interactions with other fans #if I’m ever caught lacking lmk bc I’ll do the proper research and change my opinion #hetalia #hws japan #aph japan #asakiku #engpan #hetalia critical