#Gilbert || from this baltic cannonball

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Matt accidently scaring the shit out of Gil is so fucking funny. Love how Arthur looks at Matt and sees a little malnourished soping wet kitten left outside in a storm and everyone else sees some ghoulish, brutally stone-cold being 💀. Arthurs the 'it dont bite' to Gils 'GET YOUR DOG!!'. When Gil is over what do their normal breakfast table conversations even look like? It seems like itd be a little awkward.

To be fair, that version of Matt is the one he got when Matt finally stopped shooting at anything speaking English. Sad cold baby. I feel like this is something to try and avoid as best they can. Who wants to watch their parent/mentor make googly-eyes across the table 😂. Matt just like "😬 sorry about that time I slit your throat and drowned you in a trench crater. Or the time I rolled a grenade under your latrine. Or the surrendering prisoners of war— yeah, I'm just going to go— love you dad, bye!" as he grabs some toast and runs for a train to Glasgow as Arthur tells him not to forget an umbrella and his jacket because good god, Alasdair is going to think this is so funny.

Gilbert just dumping booze into coffee all 👀. "Katya would like him."

Arthur tries not to look proud or amused.

"It's nothing we didn't do to each other!"

"In the dark ages."

"Blame the Normans. He's a sweet boy! Breakfast?"

"I'm good with Müsli and you, sir, are delusional."

They don't bring up Ludwig 😂. Nations aren't supposed to fuck each other up so much! You never know who you might need as an ally 200 years down the road! Matt kind of forgot that bit. Father's favourite combat knife got off his leash and everyone forgets he's not the novelty butter knife Alfred advertises!

#the ask box || probis pateo #Arthur || stone set in the silver sea #Gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #Gilbert and Arthur || heart of iron and heart of oak #Arthur and the children || bilge rat and his bouncing baby bilge rats #Matthew || my country is winter

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Gilbert and Erzsé.... they're one word in two fonts. Soldier and warrior. Dragoon and hussar. Monk and priestess. He lashed himself to Ludwig, to make a nation where Prussia could not possibly be dominant on its own. She wed herself to Roderich, because exchanging her sword for the crown of an empress was better than losing everything. These parallel paths, only intersecting when there is a boy to teach to ride and to fight and to read and sing. Or when corsets finally unhook and a chemise can be pulled down and a mouth can lavish attention from her throat to her thighs....

#between the devil and the deep queue sea #hws prussia #hws hungary #pruhun #hunpru #prussia x hungary #gilbert and erzse || heart of iron beat for me #gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #Erzse || In raptures I embrace

[historia-vitae-magistras]

do you have any thoughts on prussia and Canada non romantically? I think they could have an interesting dynamic that’s way overshadowed by all the shipping in the fandom, like they were enemies at one point and i think Prussia would fear Canada bc Canadians had a reputation of being really strong on the battlefield in both world wars. I think they’re def chill w/ each other modern day though.

I understand if this just isn’t ur thing, just those two are making me think thoughts and I cannot find any non romantic content of them

this was all sparked by your fic where Matt and jack are captured by Gilbert and Ludwig btw, I really liked how you wrote the dialogue there. Also you mentioned they had interacted before, care to elaborate? 👀

Oh, man yeah. Idk what precisely about prucan makes me want to jump in a lake, but in my universe, Matt literally took or nearly took Gilbert's head off with an axe in 1918 to slow the German spring offensive so lol yeah. That was his little side quest during the whole 'Alfred was mad Jack and Zee moved back behind the lines without Matt' fic from a while back. A solid quarter of Matt's war crimes were directly against Gilbert and Ludwig personally.

With the whole invisible meme and how practically every man, woman and child in Quebec participated in extremely severe brutality against the Americans and British in the 17th and 18th centuries and then threw our war crimes record on top, it's just too perfect not to write him as a trench wraith. Other nations have limits. Europe may stay their hands personally often because they never know when they might need that ally later. But Matt's never held back in his life. He couldn't afford to when he was small, and crawling on his belly through no man's land was easy for him. Ghosting his way behind enemy lines, spitting skulls and slitting throats is nothing new for him. He did that as a child, the wee freak.

And Gilbert did, too. Knight, crusader, zealot whose hand was certainly not stayed. Mutual recognition of being so fucked up they can't spend much time with the other without being reminded of some USDA Grade-A beef. I fully adhere to the headcanons that Matt's a walking flashback for Gilbert in some circumstances. But they get along fine. It's incredibly funny to picture a 1,200-year-old war machine chatting with Alfred or Arthur and then absolutely jumping out of his skin because Matt appears out of nowhere wanting affection or is just interested in the conversation. The whole anglophone world has swallowed Alfred's or even Arthur's perspective about Matt being the milder, sweeter version of Alfred, but Gilbert's specific situational PTSD just sweating bullets gives me life. It's a kind of cruel, but Matt takes utterly too much pleasure in it.

As for before that point, the long 19th century of Anglo-German fuckery as Anglo-Saxonism and a largely German monarchy drew Britain into closer cultural ties among the elite of Germany and Prussia; Gilbert often found himself in Arthur's company. They fucked a lot, mutually griping about their children. Gilbert and Matthew met and saw each other, and I want to rewrite that ficlet where Gilbert isn't exactly clocking him when he really should be in my current timeline lol. The part from canon about how everyone sees Matt in his early life as being a menacing figure at Arthur's shoulder greatly appeals to me. The guard dog with the loyalty and obedience of the best of Arthur's hounds.

Like at least once in a group drinking setting, Francois' arse has caught and kept Arthur's attention and Matt and Gilbert find themselves at a table having a conversation and swapping stories that would have them both before the Hague if they were more recent. And they just vibe. Both men depend utterly on the goodwill of often testy and impatient brothers. There is a loneliness of having one neighbour that matches fairly well with having mostly neighbours who probably hate Gil's guts on some level and loving women who could kill them. This absolute canyon of difference in how Gilbert is relegated to the museum display case, and Matt is an active, dynamic part of the world political system that keeps them apart.

#the ask box || probis pateo #Gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #matthew || my country is winter

[historia-vitae-magistras]

I don't know who else to ask about this, sorry, but I'd like to ask about Gilbert in Berlin, I know the history (ussr, west vs east), but personality-wise, does Gilbert "fit" in Berlin?

OH, don't apologize! I love this ask. Gilbert is my OG blorbaux lol. Anyone can ask me anything about him! My thought Is very much yes. It's not a natural inherent fit the way I write Matt in the woods, Arthur at sea, or Alfred in the sky or space, but he does fit.

Gilbert was born the Teutonic Knights, a military order with a very strong sense of what we might call unit-based identities in a modern military context. He exchanged that for the Duchy of Prussia, the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire, and maybe East Germany? The memory of a last generation of East Prussians who, until recently, would have remembered what his Königsberg looked like, who might remember that pre-war world he no longer recognizes when the Wall falls? The Teutonic Knights? Who is he supposed to be, still breathing in this world where everything he once was, is a relic of a bygone and disavowed age? Who makes us what we are as people? I think Gilbert did what he's always done. He looked at the world around him and found his place.

Gilbert has Ludwig, his life's work. The rest he can find in Berlin if he looks, if he wants to live. And in my version, he very much wants to live. He has been boxed up over a long post-war winter like the statues in the Volkspark Friedrichshain, but when spring comes and he’s in his city again, it's just another transition.

The Vietnamese restaurant in an odd little corner of a warehouse. The children laughing in the Mauerpark. The two young lovers fucking their brains out in the apartment next door, finding a new joy in each other's bodies. The annoying tourists. The dead places of Cold War voids bursting with greenery. The Brandenburg gate flooded with light. Marjellchen, after dark, three glasses of honey schnaps past drunk. The 24-hour clubs, bodies grinding on each other, lights flashing, sweat, and lousy house electro music. Orgies in glow paint, he's not quite sure he pulls off. Freedom past the point of reason. The visiting young historian was drinking coffee overlooking the cemetery on Greifswalder Strasse, trying to come to terms with what the place was supposed to mean. The idiot tourists at Checkpoint Charlie and the Fernseturm. Haggling with the Polish babcia at the markets over antiques. Art students smoking and bemoaning the state of the world. Stiff federal government workers. The whackos ball out at the train first thing in the morning. Every little facet reflects who he’s been and could be now. Berlin might not fit him like a glove, but he can be himself in its excess of freedom. Especially for him, being born in an actual religious institution so repressed even a thousand years of hetero pining for Erzsé was taboo, he finds some real peace in a post-war, post-war Berlin. If there was ever a city for a thousand-year-old military machine to remake itself into an actual person, it is Berlin.

He just has to convince NATO‌ to get the ankle monitor off him first lol.

#gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #the ask box || probis pateo #my berlin years were easily the happiest of my life so eiorjgeoirjijg #hws prussia #aph prussia

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Matthew inducing Gilberts PTSD is a funny concept but does everyone not take the absolute piss out of him for getting scared of a relatively newborn nation? Especially considering how long he's been a soldier for. I do enjoy Matthew as a sort of ghost-like almost folkloric creature of trench warfare but still Gilberts been around for some time. What is it about Matthew in particular thats so traumatizing to him? I mean... doesn't Gilbert predate the concept of war crimes even? What does Matthew do that Gilbert doesn't think to do first?

That's part of why it's so funny. This fucking toddler hunted him for sport and was constantly and successfully dispatched against the best units the German army had and consistently won. Matt has parents, his siblings and his uncles to work to consistently keep him fresh and in the forward lines, knowing he has good support behind him and when on the Western Front, Gilbert only had Ludwig. So I think it felt like constant, unending pressure did more damage than Matt did personally. Human beings tend to be less able to cope with long consistent trauma than single brutal events. But that said, it doesn't really hold up lmao even with the below from Shook Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War.

This whole shitpost headcanon made way more sense in its original context, which was way back when I first got into HWS. I was writing a huge arc about Gilbert's post-German reunification rehabilitation arc where he was struggling with pretty severe PTSD across the board without the steadying effect of being a nation anymore and went to counselling because it was so ridiculous Matt gave him the shakes he admitted he had a problem. It's just the funny remnant of a much larger story.

#the ask box || probis pateo #gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #matthew || my country is winter #meatsack mechanics || the sociology and biology of nations

[historia-vitae-magistras]

The only flavour of prucan I truly enjoy

#the shitpost pile || forgive me my shitty sense of humour #gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #prucan

[historia-vitae-magistras]

wait what is that ankle monitor on prussia? he still has it in the present era?

Not in our own era, no. But between the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and October 1991 and maybe into the removal of Soviet troops in 1994, many of Germany's neighbours were very nervous about reunification, to the point where iirc Germany didn't use the term itself as it had connotations going back to the late 19th-century formation of a German state under the Prussian monarchy. Gilbert was specifically restricted to what came to house arrest by Arthur's concerns, as he pushed for Gilbert's monitoring even when the French and Poles cooled their heels about it. The first time they fuck in several decades is still when Gilbert has that on his ankle. Arthur rolled off him the morning after, "Ah, yes, don't want the lads over at MI5 to see that now, do we?" And Gilbert got clipped.

This is one of those slightly cursed shitpost headcanons of mine where I joked about it, and then the dismay of many of Germany's immediate neighbours had friends from those same regions enjoy it so the headcanon stuck.

#the ask box || probis pateo #Gilbert and Arthur || heart of iron and heart of oak #gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #Arthur || stone set in the silver sea

[historia-vitae-magistras]

PTSD as a nation: *shudders* oh shucks. anyway. PTSD not as nation anymore: *rocking back and forth in the bathtub*

I don't let them off that easy while still nations, but I think there's a disconnect. People feel the trauma in their bodies. Every study about the subject corresponds to negative health outcomes with trauma. As nations, I can give them a reasonable, if nothing like foolproof buffer. Populations bounce back. New people are constantly born and dying, and not all generational trauma carries on every time. But people? We live and die in our one body, no reboots, so for Gilbert, who's barely linked to anything as time goes on, he's actually forced to do something about it.

#the ask box || probis pateo #gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #meatsack mechanics || the sociology and biology of nations

[historia-vitae-magistras]

For the Hetalia ask :3 💕, 🧠, 🏆?

💕who's a character you love but never (or rarely) talk about?

God, Gilbert. He makes me miss my life as it was when I lived in Berlin, so I don't write him as much but hgnnn I love him so much. The mix of chaos and competency, the potential for humour and horror, the tenderness for Ludwig vs the rest of his personality just muah, chefs kiss. So perfect.

🧠 what's your most "essential" headcanon? (one you can't imagine the hetalia universe without!)

The warping of humanity that makes them what they are. What makes them so creepy and eldritch sometimes isn't a dearth of humanity but an excess. Matt going feral in the woods is a very human stress response expressed in a very inhuman way. Rising from the dead is very often an inhuman mechanism, but its usually born from a desire to live, the sheer desperation to see another sunrise breaking science itself.

#the ask box || probis pateo #gilbert || from this baltic cannonball

[historia-vitae-magistras]

hello Ma'am, sorry if this sounds odd I just really like your blog and your writing and i cannot write this without sounding like...this, but I hope you know that I, as well as likely many other people absolutely adore you and your stuff.

that being said i have a question, more of a personal headcanon really, but do you headcanon some of the older nations, specifically the Isles or Ukraine for example, to have a hoarding streak a mile wide, they just have stuff, everywhere from God knows how long ago.

Again to my headcanon, Prussia is one of the few older nations who do not have this habit and it drives him absolutely round the bend when he goes to other nations houses for whatever reason and just sees stuff.

im sorry to bother as always!

Not a bother; I love things like this. I do think nations who can keep their things do. Arthur has a lot of stuff because he's had the same properties to his name for centuries and is sentimental. Katya keeps the things she can, but her history has seen a lot of upheavals, so her clutter tends to be less historical and more... lived in. Matt doesn't know what those mushrooms hanging from his ceiling beams are, but they make Katya happy, so he's fine with it.

Gilbert, I see hating clutter from the sense of military organization and having his shit rocked and ransacked in 1944 and 1945. He likes things very neat, functional, and sparse, and the only room in Arthur's house I can see him enjoying is the library because at least that's organized. You can find him smoking in the back garden or having his honey schnaps for breakfast out on the front step even if it's shit weather because if he hip-check's another Australian rugby trophy or Canadian hockey stick or trips over one of Arthur's siblings or children or acquaintances on his way to breakfast, he's going to burn Arthur's house down.

#the ask box || probis pateo #Gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #katya || бо лишало на серці сліди #Gilbert and Arthur || heart of iron and heart of oak

[historia-vitae-magistras]

kinda random but do you also headcanon that prussia knows how to play the electric guitar? (like in canon)

I do! I think he learned a lot of things while on house arrest. He had Ludwig's credit card and too much time on his hands.

#the ask box || probis pateo #gilbert || from this baltic cannonball

[historia-vitae-magistras]

semi-related to prussia's -justified- hate, do you think gilbert is happy he finally doesn't to be a soldier? (or knight. oh i'd be funny if gil its like "i wasn't always prussia" *the teutonic knights are also often hated*)

Weirdly, one of the first fics I ever wrote for this fandom was Gilbert in the early 90s, trying to adjust not only to his civilian afterlife and Ludwig being in charge but also to the speed of change the world saw. Especially in the west, tech was advancing so rapidly, and society was changing so much he had a hard time grappling with it all come the fall of the wall. As East Germany, I think he kind of clung to even the shitty communist uniform he didn't like at all. It was a sense of order, a routine he could adhere to so he didn't lose his fucking mind.

Britain and, to a slightly lesser extent, France had some concerns over the 2 + 4 treaty, and a slightly shitposty old headcanon of mine is that for Gilbert's rehabilitation, he had to wear an ankle tracker for a while when he was living in Ludwig's basement in those early years. So between that somewhat humiliating start, Ludwig's authority over him, and his getting booted out of the army when a unified Germany took over and dismantled the Volksarmee and didn't incorporate any of them into the Bundeswehr, he's pretty depressed. But he adjusted and came to enjoy his afterlife. It was sort of the first time in his life he didn't represent something blatantly militant, and it did wonders for his personality. He spent the years after the end of the Cold War making friends again, figuring out a thousand years of trauma, etc. It was a rough start, but he turned out all right.

#the ask box || probis pateo #Gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #the peculiar afterlife of Gilbert Beilschmidt

[historia-vitae-magistras]

do you also ship prueng? something about scotfra and prueng existing in one au is so ❤️✨️

My only human au is mostly fruk but my historical/nation verse has both yes! Scotfra is that auld alliance, they've been boning without understanding a word the other says in anything but Latin for 700 years kind of love. Sometimes François thinks Alasdair isn't very romantic but then the man springs some poetry and he's in love again. Saps.

Preng I'm fond of. Old farts who eat terrible curry over fries with a 12 pack of beer each and pass out watching Berlin/Herta get its cunt kicked in by literally everyone or Dortmund slaying the premiere League teams like St fucking George did his dragon. I shipped it by accident but now I'm hear for cranky old men. You can tell by all the creaking their fucking but it's their knees not the mattress.

#Gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #Arthur || stone set in the silver sea #Alasdair || my heart's in the highlands #Francois || temperee par des chansons #Alasdair and Francois || an auld and abiding love #Gilbert and Arthur || heart of iron and heart of oak #the ask box || probis pateo

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Can I ask if you go with Gilbert still being alive or not in the modern day?

Generally, I do. Pruhun is still one of my all-time favourite pairings, even though it gets like 3 notes and a bitch anon, so I don't really post it anymore I still find it incredibly cathartic. And she and Ludwig are why I generally go with Gilbert being alive. Hozier's Work Song sums it up better than I ever could.

When my time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her

#the ask box || probis pateo #Gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #Erzse || In raptures I embrace #Gilbert and Erzse || heart of iron beat for me

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Aight so we’ve heard what paternal feelings Arthur and Francis have re: their people, but I’m curious to hear your impressions of nations who don’t actually have kids of their own. Gilbert has Ludwig but they’re still very much brothers, not parent/child. Does that change the dynamic? What about, say, Mexico? She doesn’t have kids but family is massively important to her culture. Then you got ones who act like actual children more often than not—USA or Australia would be my first thought.

Idk this is a fascinating thought experiment I’m curious to hear more

!!! Hello you, I haven't seen you in an inbox in a while <3. So I've got a question in the box about this for the young Anglos going to focus on Gilbert, Ludwig and Maria.

Gilbert, before 1918 takes a rather heavy-handed approach to his citizens in many contexts. I have varied wildly with whether Ludwig calls him his brother or Papa throughout my time in this pit. But is it a very paternal relationship in general? Being raised in a militaristic order with the hierarchy of the church and then later becoming what's essentially an army that just happens to be attached to a state made him a man who tries very hard to be both strict and fair. The Prussian education system was the finest in the world for much of the 19th century, with the larger German-speaking world leading the way in medicine, education, chemistry and several other fields. He wants to see his people thrive. He has a certain callousness regarding the lives of men; war is, after all, the endless meatgrinder, and it is what he's best at. But with his women and children, that relationship also exists. Obedience, discipline and loyalty from them correspond to Gilbert's devotion, even-handedness and sense of duty in return.

Ludwig for much of his history in the structure of the Prussian-dominated German Empire, where Gilbert filled the role of pater familas, soldier and usually had the final say; Ludwig filled that more domestic, civilian counterpart. He was and still is very young. He loves trains, he loves cars, he wants all the engineering advancements and is keenly interested in them and their practical applications of improving the quality of life for his people. In addition, he has always been very awkward in artistic spaces (baby gay didn't know why the fuck he liked men's butts so much yet) but is still very interested in the artistic developments of his people. Especially musically. I've always thought of adult Ludwig as having a very pleasant baritone singing voice and a very clear crystalline one as a child. He goes to the film premieres, he goes to the ballet, and he subtly pushes for artistic funding if he feels he can help there.

Maria, in my view, doesn't view herself as much of a maternal figure in the lives of her people. As semi-magical, semi-immortal creatures, they have that slightly uncanny effect. In some nations, people are just comfortable handing their children over to be held. She's one of those. She'll hold babies a bit awkwardly, but she loves them. And due to what she is, people don't comment on her singleness or her lack of an immediate family in Mexico itself. She feels most herself amongst them and usually passes among them without any problem. On the Day of the Dead, she's just another daughter putting flowers on her mother's grave. When the population takes to the streets, she's another protestor in the streets. She speaks Nahuatl She shops and eats in the markets. She has Valencia and Navelina orange trees in her yard. She doesn't mind the local children plucking their share from the branches. She lives and works and loves amongst her people.

#Maria || lo que viví lo estoy muriendo todavía #Gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #Ludwig || in deinem Herzchen klein #the ask box || probis pateo

[historia-vitae-magistras]

10 with Prussia and Hungary

Dialogue Prompt No. 10. "so... do you come here often?" Pruhun, slightly NSFW.

21st Century, Berlin.

"So... Come here often?" A young man asked, tugging his coat tighter around him, German tinged with something Gilbert couldn't quite recognize. The stranger was a pleasant fellow, standing in line just ahead of them of the walk up line for the Currywurst counter, smiling in that way that chatty Americans did like they wanted to befriend all the world. Gilbert glanced at Erzsé, and died inside. She'd gotten that mischievous look. Her braid dropped over her shoulder and her hand entered his coat pocket, reaching low.

"Only on special occasions." She said, squeezing. His toes curled in his boots. He stared at the iron-ingot grey sky, threatening rain. Carl von Clauswitz had once said to him, in their pursuit of the retreating French. Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination. One decisive aim was not copping a boner twenty meters from a public park. Fucking her senseless with half a bottle of pálinka in their bellies in the Mauerpark on their anniversary at three was one thing. But this? Shit. Fuck. She smiled. The pleasant young stranger was still talking. What was he saying? Gilbert had forgotten any language he might have ever known. He dragger her from the line, their vague hunger forgotten as his cock got hard. She was kissing him as she hailed a cab.

"Come here often, eh?" He asked, laughing, giving up and in.

"Only on special occasions." She repeated. "Want to go home and break the mattress?"

#the ask box || probis pateo #hws prussia #hws Hungary #aph Hungary #aph Prussia #Hetalia #pruhun #Hunpru #Erzse || In raptures I embrace #Gilbert || from this baltic cannonball #Gilbert and Erzse || heart of iron beat for me