Application for towerofanimus
Player Information
Name: Narva
Personal LJ: whatisnarva
Age: 24
Contact Info: PM, please; plurk: whatisnarva
Other Characters Played: N/A
Character Information
Character Name: Sweden / Bengta Oxenstierna
Character Series: Axis Powers Hetalia/Nyotalia
Character Age: ~21
Alternate Universe
Canon Point: ~1760
Background Link: Wikipedia Shoutwiki on Sweden Shoutwiki on Nyotalia
AU Background:
The core difference between this backround and Nyotalia as well as Hetalia is that a) some nations are female that are male in Hetalia, and some are still male and b) that history started to go differently in 1700. In all other ways it is exactly like Hetalia/Nyotalia.
Sweden was born a couple of decades BC, but she hardly remembers her earlier childhood today (most of it only remains as images, short moments, single sentances and vague faces, memories of that sort). The nation that she bonded with first was the girl that would later become Denmark, only a few decades afterwards. It only took one night, spent in the same tree trying to not get eaten by some animal, for Denmark to decide that they were sisters, and of course Sweden would be the younger sister - and that was that. The line between blood relation and adoption was blurred from the start, and even today Sweden will not swear an oath on either version. Maybe they are blood related, maybe not. It does not really matter, they have enough history together for that.
The two little girls soon became inseparable, or as close to inseparable as nations can get, since they both had their own people to look after. It helped that they were tribes loosely connected by a shared difference towards other tribal groups at that point and there was no one boss that they had to listen to.
The second nation that Sweden met, beaten by Denmark only by a few days, was Germania, who became a distant mother figure for the girls. She raised them as boys, reasoning that that would make a lot of things easier, and up until they hit puberty (which happened some time during the 10th century AD), neither of them really thought of themselves as girls. They were aware of the fact that they weren't normal boys, but Sweden at least did not think much about that; they were not normal people either, after all, and she never thought further than that. But then puberty started to hit, a long time after Germania had left, and when her lands (Gotland and Svealand) finally unified, Denmark's teasing about her wearing the wrong clothes now that she was “finally” a “real” nation, her people's pressure, and her own desire to do things correctly led to her changing her hairstyle into that of a woman and finding some appropriate clothes. Ever the quiet observer, it didn't take her long to pick up what she needed to know about behaviour and similar things, but what remains to the day is a slight confusion about gender roles (thinking of herself as Finland's husband, for example; she has other reasons for this as well - she considers the dominant person in a relationship to be the husband).
A couple of centuries later, unhappy with her own king and intrigued by Denmark's female boss and the woman's strength, competence and willpower (and probably also simply by her accomplishments despite her gender), she asked her sister if she'd share. Denmark, thrilled by the thought of having the whole family under one roof for real, agreed. For well over a century, they now lived together: Denmark, Sweden, their friend/little brother Norway, Norway's little sister/everyone's little sister Iceland, and Finland, whom Sweden had picked up a while ago and taken home with her.
They were a big happy family and lived happily ever after - only not. Denmark, strong and possessive and very much drawn towards leadership, tried to do just that, lead. And Sweden, proud, and the strongest of the other nations in the house, started to make it clear soon that this was not what she had signed up for. They started to fight, and their fights got nastier and nastier until one November day in 1520, when something broke and Denmark went too far. That day, in the Bloodbath of Stockholm, Denmark's king had ordered the execution of Sweden's most important nobles, after gathering them for what were essentially peace talks in which Denmark had the upper hand. And while Sweden sat there in shock, trying to comprehend what had just happened and staring at the injuries inflicted on her by her sister, another woman stepped into her life. She was the wife of one of the executed men, and led her country into and through the War of Liberation, giving her the hope and the strength to believe in herself, and her soldiers the strength to believe in themselves and their nation. The union of Kalmar started with Sweden's admiration of a human woman, and it ended in the same way.
Three years later, that war was won and Sweden was her own, independent country. She had taken Finland with her when she left, but Finland was the only one: Norway and Iceland stayed with Denmark, and for the next three hundred years, the North would stay split into two halves at almost constant war with each other.
During those years, Sweden grew stronger and stronger, reaching her peak in the second half of the 17th century. Her moment of vastest expansion was in 1658, at which point not only Finland, but also Latvia and Estonia lived with her, and she owned quite a lot of other nations' territory, too. Then a war happened (this is not really that unheard of, but it was a big one). Russia, Poland-Lithuania in a personal union with Saxony, and Denmark-Norway agreed on attacking her at the same time. Sweden defeated her sister first (mostly because it was the closest to the mainland and thus most dangerous threat, but also because she had allies that could enforce the subsequent peace treaty and eliminate the Danish threat for a while) and then went to the East to take on Russia. After kicking her ass solidly, [HERE IT GETS DIFFERENT] she did the intelligent thing and negotiated a peace with August's nations that, while she had to give up Latvia for it, bought her the time that she needed to follow Russia and do away with the other woman's army. It had been in a bad shape before the fight, and the outnumbered Swedes' victory and the harsh winter had taken their toll as well. It was not hard for the Northern Lioness to move down there and capture Moscow in early spring (being in the momentary favor of General Winter as well as having her supplies not cut off/the Baltics already exhausted from the war played a huge part in this).
The subsequent internal troubles in Russia lead to the fall of Peter and the short-lived installation of a Swedish puppet-king that was soon replaced by treaties, tributes and landloss on the Russian side in favor of the nation becoming more or less independent again. The younger woman would retain her status as a Swedish vassall for almost thirty years - the Russian empire never hatched, Poland-Lithuania got out of the conflict stronger than they had entered it, and the old status quo of Europe's Eastern half could live on some longer. Sweden had her usual quarrels with Denmark-Norway but all in all was too busy with Russia and her two remaining territories (who both had gained some land that the empire had forced Russia to cede to them) to try to invade someone or try and start another war kicking Denmark over something minor never counts. When the Seven Years War rolled around and Sweden joined pretty much the same way in which Russia had joined it in our world, with very similar interests. And that is where we are right now.
Personality:
A lot of things can be said about Sweden, and some of them seem to contradict each other at first glance. She is very compassionate and loyal, thoughtful and caring, loves children and animals and can be fiercely protective. But she also overthinks everything way too much, is shy to a crippling level, proud to a level where it could be called arrogance, and can be practical to the point of being cruel. While changes are hard for her, she can sometimes be (among) the most advanced of her time in certain areas. She is also very stubborn and can hold grudges for a long time.
• Once Sweden has set her heart on something, she will pursue it and do whatever she can to make it to become reality, or, if it is a person, for them to be happy and well. She will simply not give up, and if she is forced to by the situation or another force that is not under her control, it will be a very slow and painful process. An example is Finland; she fell for her then-territory during the Kalmar Union time, and never fell out of love with him again - no matter how bad their relationship got, no matter the political relationship. Amd the same, although the 'falling in love' part happened a lot later, goes for Estonia. Another example, this time for something that ends slowly and painfully, is her love for Socialism. She has been through various stages and forms of it during the last fifty years (of our world and time), including a nearly Soviet phase, and is currently trying to change into a less Socialist system, because it just does not work the way it always used to when facing the changed challenges of the modern world.
• Children: Sweden is one of the nations titled “mother” (Svea) by her citizens (as opposed to others picturing their nations as fathers, virgins, etc). She would also like to be one not only as a metaphor but literally, yet ... She used to pick up young nations and try to be a mother or at least big sister for them for a while (the Rus siblings), but she did that away from home because they had their own places to tend to. And human children grow up, get old and die very fast by the standards of a nation her age. Yet much more important reasons against having children in her own house* are social rules and her good name; raising a child alone, or, more correctly, without a husband at her side (for a long time, Finland was too young - at least very obviously younger than her - so he couldn't count), would kill her socially and she cannot afford that. It's not so much other nations that would mind, or even other nations' people (Denmark is generally a lot more liberal than her about most things), but her own people. And those are, in the end, the most important by far.
It will take the many changes that modern times bring with them before she can adopt a child and have it live with her. Yet, if she gets the chance, she will take care of children, and also small animals and everyonething that can be considered cute, even though at first glance she definitely does not look like that type of woman.
[*Latvia, at the time when she came to live with her, was already at an age where families sent their children away to work in other people's households, and also too old to logically have been hers.]
• Sweden barely, if ever, makes thoughtless comments. Some might credit this to the fact that she does not talk much at all, but in reality it is exactly the other way around; while most people only think about 30% of the things that they say, Sweden evaluates the pros and cons and the exact wording of every thing that she says beforehand. This leads to her being very sparse with her words. And even then, she is sometimes unsure about what she said and if she said it correctly, especially when the situation on itself is embarrassing or a lot is at stake. Instead of speaking faster, like most people would, her accent gets much stronger, making her speech nearly unintelligible. All of this is different when she is shouty-angry - which really almost exclusively happens with Denmark. She's usually more of a calm-angry type, and she can be very unforgiving, and hold grudges for a long time. 300 years of wars with her former best friend (and continued friendly animosity to the IRL day) were certainly not the result of only Denmark being unable to let go of things and start over again.
• Related to the overthinking is the fact that she is very shy. Not the "doesn't speak up and lets others run the show" kind, but of the "can I do/say this /can I do this this way/won't this come out wrong /etc" kind. Growing into one of Europe's major powers hasn't made that any better (as one might think because of gained confidence), but made it worse instead (because now everything she does and says has even more weight, and more consequences). If for example she were asked to give congratulations for someone's birthday, she would try, resulting in minutes of her simply staring at the other in what seems to be a threatening fashion (her facial expression tends to do that when she is thinking hard), maybe flail and blush a bit, until she either comes out with two or three words or Finland Estonia someone else helps her out of the situation by filling in the silence. She has a hard time with words and vastly prefers silent actions- instead of fussing over a sick child with many words and telling it stories to keep it entertained, she'll make sure that it stays in bed, gets a warm soup and sleeps a lot, preferably without her having to say a word.
• "Proud to a level where it could be called arrogance" - that they are very arrogant is a typical stereotype about Swedes that quite a few nations (most notably the Netherlands and Denmark) share. An example for how it shows in the nation would be when, in (IRL) 1814, she would not budge the slightest bit, demanding and fighting for her right to Norway despite everyone, including herself, not being too happy with the way things were going down. It was about a lot of things, but a big part was that she had been promised and earned the right to have the younger man come live with her. When it finally happened and she got her way, it was like a thunderstorm suddenly dying. When before she wouldn't listen to Norway at all, now, at least for a little while, she gave the other almost everything he demanded, if he'd just stay. Or, for another example of her pride, there was the time she invaded Denmark and captured her capital only to show that she could and to humiliate the other woman.
• A variety of people have called Sweden cruel over the years. Sure, there were instances when it was meant in a teasing or joking way, but there were also times when the meaning was entirely serious. There are small things, like finishing off a horse that is too deadly wounded to be able to walk ever again, but also larger ones - her staying neutral through WW2 is not a perfect example of this, because she was also called a coward for it besides being accused of being cold and uncaring towards her neighbours, but it carries the essence of the accusation well enough. But she can also swing the exact opposite way and make everyone who looks at her tactics rationally want to bash their face into their palm, like when she put Latvia's safety over making sure that Russia would not recover from her defeat in the beginning of the Great Northern War.
(Both of those she did not do in this AU, but the point stands. The second she did not do because -well, it was Estonia she was dating, not Latvia, and while she cared about Latvia, she knew that the little girl would be safe with Lithuania and Poland and that they would treat her well. And keeping Estonia and safeguarding her was a clear priority, and kicking Russia solidly was crucial for that.
The first she did not do because she was still strong and one of the big European powers, willing and ready to get into another war. The "calming down" period after the Napoleonic Wars will simply not happen for her.)
• The speed at which she adapts to new situations and inventions can only be called strange, sometimes extremely fast and even earlier than her contemporaries, and sometimes very far behind the last developments; sometimes very conservative, sometimes liberal and curious. For example: While Christianity and the Industrial Revolution took a lot longer to catch on in her country than in that of her closest independent neighbour, Denmark, Sweden was the first nation to rely solely on her own citizens in war instead of mercenaries, and to start building a kind of retirement homes for honored veterans, and to make a real, effective effort to spread the use of ethanol cars.
I'll try to point out some key differences between her and her male version, and some other assorted facts about her, in the following:
• Morals: Morals: As indicated above, morals play a huge role in Sweden's life. She feels the need to conform herself to them much more strongly than male!Sweden, due to the fact that the backlash for not doing so would be a lot harder for a woman.
• Speech: Sweden, as one of the very first nations who had any remarkable accent that got to say something in canon, was given a grunt speak in English by the translators (“'m brought flow'rs fer y'.”). To the day he is one of the very few that are shown with a strong accent in English, and I thus will reflect that. It will, however, be much weaker (“I brought flow'rs for you.”). While in Japanese, women of high standing may speak an regional accent (which Sweden's grunt speak is originally), too, most Western cultures expect women of high standing to speak with very clear, refined language. While I do not want to completely abandon the way Sweden speaks, I think it needs to be downsized a lot.
Sweden is very thrifty with her words just like her male counterpart, but talks a bit more in total because she speaks more politely (like “Use th's please” instead of “Use 't.”)
• Weapon: A sword instead of a stick (ignoring some merch that provides male!Sweden with a sword, his typical weapon is a simple long fighting stick). To me, that mainly means two things: a) She knows how to handle it, and b) despite her being female, she was never out of touch with her military (which, for a nation who despite all odds being against it managed to be THE military power of Europe for decades and longer, would be strange anyway). She would of course fight less at the front lines and more towards the back with the highest officers/king most of the time; not stay with her soldiers in battle but have a tent of her own, together with her territories; and she would not so much train with her men on Sundays, but spar with Finland and other private partners, if available. But she would not have bid her weapons farewell when she became a woman officially (though she most definitely stopped using a battleaxe then in favour of the less strictly male weapon of the sword).
• Hobbies: Male!Sweden is a weekend carpenter and likes decorative arts. Bengta does the female equivalents: Knitting, embroidering, and all other kinds of needlework and sewing.
• Denmark: The key difference here is that their fights are a lot more vicious but on a less physical level. Sure, they were fighting physically, too, but there was a lot more “psychological warfare" going on, with less raw and more complicated emotions. On the upside, they had an easier time reconciling on the surface to work together despite all the old bad feelings still being there. Besides that, their relationship is very similar to their male counterparts'.
• Touching: Bengta is a lot less awkward and nervous about touching others than Berwald, simply because touching is a lot easier and happens more often and naturally between women, and women and children, than between men. She has to think a lot less about how hugging, holding hands, etc, will be perceived. This also means that her face is not as scary as Berwald's when she hugs/etc others, simply because she is not as nervous.
• On a related note, Bengta is a lot more direct about liking/wanting someone. She still is very shy about it and definitely won't say anything too soon, but when she is sure about her feelings and has decided that it is appropriate to act upon them, and that the time is good and the possibility of her feelings being reciprocated high, she will act. She is also way more likely than Berwald to seek advice/help about it.
• Another fun fact: Bengta is even more controlled and strict than Berwald when she is sober, but her being drunk is a lot more obvious than when Berwald is drunk (she is a happy and slightly touchy-feely drunk, but only with people that she really likes anyway).
• Appearance: Sweden is plain intimidating. In his canon, Berwald manages to intimidate the heck out of almost everyone without even trying (Russia being among the few exceptions), and there is no reason to believe that Bengta is any different. The main reasons for this are a) her sheer height (tall for a woman, even taller than almost all male nations in Hetalia Main), b) her face (she does not mean to make scary faces, but that is just her default expression, and it gets even scarier when she's thinking hard or embarrassed) and c) the way she talks (very direct and to the point, not much in general, and never cheerful).
Abilities:
The typical nation “abilities” -- near immortality, being connected to their people and soil in actions and health, being able to walk from one nation's house to another in a short amount of time, having to listen to her boss. She also is a strong warrior, knows how to handle most weapons, and is quite strong in general for a human woman, but not superhumanly so.
Sample Entry:
Note:
• While "Kalmar Unions" would be the more correct term (and also the correct translation from Swedish, Danish and Norwegian), since it was a multitude of unions between the three involved countries with changing members, legal forms and political foundations, the English term seems to be "Kalmar Union" and I stuck to that in this app and will stick with in while RPing.
Name: Narva
Personal LJ: whatisnarva
Age: 24
Contact Info: PM, please; plurk: whatisnarva
Other Characters Played: N/A
Character Information
Character Name: Sweden / Bengta Oxenstierna
Character Series: Axis Powers Hetalia/Nyotalia
Character Age: ~21
Alternate Universe
Canon Point: ~1760
Background Link: Wikipedia Shoutwiki on Sweden Shoutwiki on Nyotalia
AU Background:
The core difference between this backround and Nyotalia as well as Hetalia is that a) some nations are female that are male in Hetalia, and some are still male and b) that history started to go differently in 1700. In all other ways it is exactly like Hetalia/Nyotalia.
Sweden was born a couple of decades BC, but she hardly remembers her earlier childhood today (most of it only remains as images, short moments, single sentances and vague faces, memories of that sort). The nation that she bonded with first was the girl that would later become Denmark, only a few decades afterwards. It only took one night, spent in the same tree trying to not get eaten by some animal, for Denmark to decide that they were sisters, and of course Sweden would be the younger sister - and that was that. The line between blood relation and adoption was blurred from the start, and even today Sweden will not swear an oath on either version. Maybe they are blood related, maybe not. It does not really matter, they have enough history together for that.
The two little girls soon became inseparable, or as close to inseparable as nations can get, since they both had their own people to look after. It helped that they were tribes loosely connected by a shared difference towards other tribal groups at that point and there was no one boss that they had to listen to.
The second nation that Sweden met, beaten by Denmark only by a few days, was Germania, who became a distant mother figure for the girls. She raised them as boys, reasoning that that would make a lot of things easier, and up until they hit puberty (which happened some time during the 10th century AD), neither of them really thought of themselves as girls. They were aware of the fact that they weren't normal boys, but Sweden at least did not think much about that; they were not normal people either, after all, and she never thought further than that. But then puberty started to hit, a long time after Germania had left, and when her lands (Gotland and Svealand) finally unified, Denmark's teasing about her wearing the wrong clothes now that she was “finally” a “real” nation, her people's pressure, and her own desire to do things correctly led to her changing her hairstyle into that of a woman and finding some appropriate clothes. Ever the quiet observer, it didn't take her long to pick up what she needed to know about behaviour and similar things, but what remains to the day is a slight confusion about gender roles (thinking of herself as Finland's husband, for example; she has other reasons for this as well - she considers the dominant person in a relationship to be the husband).
A couple of centuries later, unhappy with her own king and intrigued by Denmark's female boss and the woman's strength, competence and willpower (and probably also simply by her accomplishments despite her gender), she asked her sister if she'd share. Denmark, thrilled by the thought of having the whole family under one roof for real, agreed. For well over a century, they now lived together: Denmark, Sweden, their friend/little brother Norway, Norway's little sister/everyone's little sister Iceland, and Finland, whom Sweden had picked up a while ago and taken home with her.
They were a big happy family and lived happily ever after - only not. Denmark, strong and possessive and very much drawn towards leadership, tried to do just that, lead. And Sweden, proud, and the strongest of the other nations in the house, started to make it clear soon that this was not what she had signed up for. They started to fight, and their fights got nastier and nastier until one November day in 1520, when something broke and Denmark went too far. That day, in the Bloodbath of Stockholm, Denmark's king had ordered the execution of Sweden's most important nobles, after gathering them for what were essentially peace talks in which Denmark had the upper hand. And while Sweden sat there in shock, trying to comprehend what had just happened and staring at the injuries inflicted on her by her sister, another woman stepped into her life. She was the wife of one of the executed men, and led her country into and through the War of Liberation, giving her the hope and the strength to believe in herself, and her soldiers the strength to believe in themselves and their nation. The union of Kalmar started with Sweden's admiration of a human woman, and it ended in the same way.
Three years later, that war was won and Sweden was her own, independent country. She had taken Finland with her when she left, but Finland was the only one: Norway and Iceland stayed with Denmark, and for the next three hundred years, the North would stay split into two halves at almost constant war with each other.
During those years, Sweden grew stronger and stronger, reaching her peak in the second half of the 17th century. Her moment of vastest expansion was in 1658, at which point not only Finland, but also Latvia and Estonia lived with her, and she owned quite a lot of other nations' territory, too. Then a war happened (this is not really that unheard of, but it was a big one). Russia, Poland-Lithuania in a personal union with Saxony, and Denmark-Norway agreed on attacking her at the same time. Sweden defeated her sister first (mostly because it was the closest to the mainland and thus most dangerous threat, but also because she had allies that could enforce the subsequent peace treaty and eliminate the Danish threat for a while) and then went to the East to take on Russia. After kicking her ass solidly, [HERE IT GETS DIFFERENT] she did the intelligent thing and negotiated a peace with August's nations that, while she had to give up Latvia for it, bought her the time that she needed to follow Russia and do away with the other woman's army. It had been in a bad shape before the fight, and the outnumbered Swedes' victory and the harsh winter had taken their toll as well. It was not hard for the Northern Lioness to move down there and capture Moscow in early spring (being in the momentary favor of General Winter as well as having her supplies not cut off/the Baltics already exhausted from the war played a huge part in this).
The subsequent internal troubles in Russia lead to the fall of Peter and the short-lived installation of a Swedish puppet-king that was soon replaced by treaties, tributes and landloss on the Russian side in favor of the nation becoming more or less independent again. The younger woman would retain her status as a Swedish vassall for almost thirty years - the Russian empire never hatched, Poland-Lithuania got out of the conflict stronger than they had entered it, and the old status quo of Europe's Eastern half could live on some longer. Sweden had her usual quarrels with Denmark-Norway but all in all was too busy with Russia and her two remaining territories (who both had gained some land that the empire had forced Russia to cede to them) to try to invade someone or try and start another war kicking Denmark over something minor never counts. When the Seven Years War rolled around and Sweden joined pretty much the same way in which Russia had joined it in our world, with very similar interests. And that is where we are right now.
Personality:
A lot of things can be said about Sweden, and some of them seem to contradict each other at first glance. She is very compassionate and loyal, thoughtful and caring, loves children and animals and can be fiercely protective. But she also overthinks everything way too much, is shy to a crippling level, proud to a level where it could be called arrogance, and can be practical to the point of being cruel. While changes are hard for her, she can sometimes be (among) the most advanced of her time in certain areas. She is also very stubborn and can hold grudges for a long time.
• Once Sweden has set her heart on something, she will pursue it and do whatever she can to make it to become reality, or, if it is a person, for them to be happy and well. She will simply not give up, and if she is forced to by the situation or another force that is not under her control, it will be a very slow and painful process. An example is Finland; she fell for her then-territory during the Kalmar Union time, and never fell out of love with him again - no matter how bad their relationship got, no matter the political relationship. Amd the same, although the 'falling in love' part happened a lot later, goes for Estonia. Another example, this time for something that ends slowly and painfully, is her love for Socialism. She has been through various stages and forms of it during the last fifty years (of our world and time), including a nearly Soviet phase, and is currently trying to change into a less Socialist system, because it just does not work the way it always used to when facing the changed challenges of the modern world.
• Children: Sweden is one of the nations titled “mother” (Svea) by her citizens (as opposed to others picturing their nations as fathers, virgins, etc). She would also like to be one not only as a metaphor but literally, yet ... She used to pick up young nations and try to be a mother or at least big sister for them for a while (the Rus siblings), but she did that away from home because they had their own places to tend to. And human children grow up, get old and die very fast by the standards of a nation her age. Yet much more important reasons against having children in her own house* are social rules and her good name; raising a child alone, or, more correctly, without a husband at her side (for a long time, Finland was too young - at least very obviously younger than her - so he couldn't count), would kill her socially and she cannot afford that. It's not so much other nations that would mind, or even other nations' people (Denmark is generally a lot more liberal than her about most things), but her own people. And those are, in the end, the most important by far.
It will take the many changes that modern times bring with them before she can adopt a child and have it live with her. Yet, if she gets the chance, she will take care of children, and also small animals and everyonething that can be considered cute, even though at first glance she definitely does not look like that type of woman.
[*Latvia, at the time when she came to live with her, was already at an age where families sent their children away to work in other people's households, and also too old to logically have been hers.]
• Sweden barely, if ever, makes thoughtless comments. Some might credit this to the fact that she does not talk much at all, but in reality it is exactly the other way around; while most people only think about 30% of the things that they say, Sweden evaluates the pros and cons and the exact wording of every thing that she says beforehand. This leads to her being very sparse with her words. And even then, she is sometimes unsure about what she said and if she said it correctly, especially when the situation on itself is embarrassing or a lot is at stake. Instead of speaking faster, like most people would, her accent gets much stronger, making her speech nearly unintelligible. All of this is different when she is shouty-angry - which really almost exclusively happens with Denmark. She's usually more of a calm-angry type, and she can be very unforgiving, and hold grudges for a long time. 300 years of wars with her former best friend (and continued friendly animosity to the IRL day) were certainly not the result of only Denmark being unable to let go of things and start over again.
• Related to the overthinking is the fact that she is very shy. Not the "doesn't speak up and lets others run the show" kind, but of the "can I do/say this /can I do this this way/won't this come out wrong /etc" kind. Growing into one of Europe's major powers hasn't made that any better (as one might think because of gained confidence), but made it worse instead (because now everything she does and says has even more weight, and more consequences). If for example she were asked to give congratulations for someone's birthday, she would try, resulting in minutes of her simply staring at the other in what seems to be a threatening fashion (her facial expression tends to do that when she is thinking hard), maybe flail and blush a bit, until she either comes out with two or three words or Finland Estonia someone else helps her out of the situation by filling in the silence. She has a hard time with words and vastly prefers silent actions- instead of fussing over a sick child with many words and telling it stories to keep it entertained, she'll make sure that it stays in bed, gets a warm soup and sleeps a lot, preferably without her having to say a word.
• "Proud to a level where it could be called arrogance" - that they are very arrogant is a typical stereotype about Swedes that quite a few nations (most notably the Netherlands and Denmark) share. An example for how it shows in the nation would be when, in (IRL) 1814, she would not budge the slightest bit, demanding and fighting for her right to Norway despite everyone, including herself, not being too happy with the way things were going down. It was about a lot of things, but a big part was that she had been promised and earned the right to have the younger man come live with her. When it finally happened and she got her way, it was like a thunderstorm suddenly dying. When before she wouldn't listen to Norway at all, now, at least for a little while, she gave the other almost everything he demanded, if he'd just stay. Or, for another example of her pride, there was the time she invaded Denmark and captured her capital only to show that she could and to humiliate the other woman.
• A variety of people have called Sweden cruel over the years. Sure, there were instances when it was meant in a teasing or joking way, but there were also times when the meaning was entirely serious. There are small things, like finishing off a horse that is too deadly wounded to be able to walk ever again, but also larger ones - her staying neutral through WW2 is not a perfect example of this, because she was also called a coward for it besides being accused of being cold and uncaring towards her neighbours, but it carries the essence of the accusation well enough. But she can also swing the exact opposite way and make everyone who looks at her tactics rationally want to bash their face into their palm, like when she put Latvia's safety over making sure that Russia would not recover from her defeat in the beginning of the Great Northern War.
(Both of those she did not do in this AU, but the point stands. The second she did not do because -well, it was Estonia she was dating, not Latvia, and while she cared about Latvia, she knew that the little girl would be safe with Lithuania and Poland and that they would treat her well. And keeping Estonia and safeguarding her was a clear priority, and kicking Russia solidly was crucial for that.
The first she did not do because she was still strong and one of the big European powers, willing and ready to get into another war. The "calming down" period after the Napoleonic Wars will simply not happen for her.)
• The speed at which she adapts to new situations and inventions can only be called strange, sometimes extremely fast and even earlier than her contemporaries, and sometimes very far behind the last developments; sometimes very conservative, sometimes liberal and curious. For example: While Christianity and the Industrial Revolution took a lot longer to catch on in her country than in that of her closest independent neighbour, Denmark, Sweden was the first nation to rely solely on her own citizens in war instead of mercenaries, and to start building a kind of retirement homes for honored veterans, and to make a real, effective effort to spread the use of ethanol cars.
I'll try to point out some key differences between her and her male version, and some other assorted facts about her, in the following:
• Morals: Morals: As indicated above, morals play a huge role in Sweden's life. She feels the need to conform herself to them much more strongly than male!Sweden, due to the fact that the backlash for not doing so would be a lot harder for a woman.
• Speech: Sweden, as one of the very first nations who had any remarkable accent that got to say something in canon, was given a grunt speak in English by the translators (“'m brought flow'rs fer y'.”). To the day he is one of the very few that are shown with a strong accent in English, and I thus will reflect that. It will, however, be much weaker (“I brought flow'rs for you.”). While in Japanese, women of high standing may speak an regional accent (which Sweden's grunt speak is originally), too, most Western cultures expect women of high standing to speak with very clear, refined language. While I do not want to completely abandon the way Sweden speaks, I think it needs to be downsized a lot.
Sweden is very thrifty with her words just like her male counterpart, but talks a bit more in total because she speaks more politely (like “Use th's please” instead of “Use 't.”)
• Weapon: A sword instead of a stick (ignoring some merch that provides male!Sweden with a sword, his typical weapon is a simple long fighting stick). To me, that mainly means two things: a) She knows how to handle it, and b) despite her being female, she was never out of touch with her military (which, for a nation who despite all odds being against it managed to be THE military power of Europe for decades and longer, would be strange anyway). She would of course fight less at the front lines and more towards the back with the highest officers/king most of the time; not stay with her soldiers in battle but have a tent of her own, together with her territories; and she would not so much train with her men on Sundays, but spar with Finland and other private partners, if available. But she would not have bid her weapons farewell when she became a woman officially (though she most definitely stopped using a battleaxe then in favour of the less strictly male weapon of the sword).
• Hobbies: Male!Sweden is a weekend carpenter and likes decorative arts. Bengta does the female equivalents: Knitting, embroidering, and all other kinds of needlework and sewing.
• Denmark: The key difference here is that their fights are a lot more vicious but on a less physical level. Sure, they were fighting physically, too, but there was a lot more “psychological warfare" going on, with less raw and more complicated emotions. On the upside, they had an easier time reconciling on the surface to work together despite all the old bad feelings still being there. Besides that, their relationship is very similar to their male counterparts'.
• Touching: Bengta is a lot less awkward and nervous about touching others than Berwald, simply because touching is a lot easier and happens more often and naturally between women, and women and children, than between men. She has to think a lot less about how hugging, holding hands, etc, will be perceived. This also means that her face is not as scary as Berwald's when she hugs/etc others, simply because she is not as nervous.
• On a related note, Bengta is a lot more direct about liking/wanting someone. She still is very shy about it and definitely won't say anything too soon, but when she is sure about her feelings and has decided that it is appropriate to act upon them, and that the time is good and the possibility of her feelings being reciprocated high, she will act. She is also way more likely than Berwald to seek advice/help about it.
• Another fun fact: Bengta is even more controlled and strict than Berwald when she is sober, but her being drunk is a lot more obvious than when Berwald is drunk (she is a happy and slightly touchy-feely drunk, but only with people that she really likes anyway).
• Appearance: Sweden is plain intimidating. In his canon, Berwald manages to intimidate the heck out of almost everyone without even trying (Russia being among the few exceptions), and there is no reason to believe that Bengta is any different. The main reasons for this are a) her sheer height (tall for a woman, even taller than almost all male nations in Hetalia Main), b) her face (she does not mean to make scary faces, but that is just her default expression, and it gets even scarier when she's thinking hard or embarrassed) and c) the way she talks (very direct and to the point, not much in general, and never cheerful).
Abilities:
The typical nation “abilities” -- near immortality, being connected to their people and soil in actions and health, being able to walk from one nation's house to another in a short amount of time, having to listen to her boss. She also is a strong warrior, knows how to handle most weapons, and is quite strong in general for a human woman, but not superhumanly so.
Sample Entry:
Note:
• While "Kalmar Unions" would be the more correct term (and also the correct translation from Swedish, Danish and Norwegian), since it was a multitude of unions between the three involved countries with changing members, legal forms and political foundations, the English term seems to be "Kalmar Union" and I stuck to that in this app and will stick with in while RPing.