Tuesday DE

[inlovewithwords]

Well, I am American, so I guess this question is on my mind:

How does your character feel about the country(/kindgom/whatever) where they live? Are they patriotic? Is there a sense of national identity they align with?

Comments

[quick_clean_pure]

The USA went to shit in Graverobber's lifetime, so while his anger is mostly directed at GeneCo for how messed-up things are, he's also bitter at all the power structures that let them get away with shit to begin with.

[fairy_fixit]

Amascut is in a way patriotic about the Kharid in that most of her destructive behavior is directed at the former Kharidian Empire's territories and manipulating the present governments and factions into war with eachother. She cares about what's happening outside the Kharid a bit, but she is very focused on wrecking shit in the Kharid first and foremost. But... umm... she doesn't feel obligated to any one nation or government. She's a Kharidian Goddess and she treats the nations of the Kharid as if they belong to her, not the other way around.

Fairy Fixit is almost the complete opposite. She's very loyal to the Zanarian Fairy Queen and covertly provided logistical support to the resistance during the coup by the Fairy Mafia as well as sabotaging the Mafia when the opportunity presented itself. However, all of this was covert; she wasn't openly defying Mafia rule, so I am guessing she is loyal but not jingoistic.

[bjornwilde]

Sam is patriotic but isn't blind to the injustices and flaws in America. He defines himself as American.

Hank is patriotic to a fault but the foundations are crumbling as he sees how people who are not white, i.e. white males, actually live and are victimized. The US Navy firing on the team in Cuba didn't help the government's standing.

Danny is kind of disconnected from being American right now, but does see himself as a New Yorker, as well as being of K'un Lun.

Tybalt is a tricky case for this one, as are any fae I would think. He is loyal to his Court first and foremost, but doesn't really have a national/court identity beyond being cait sidhe. I could see an argument that he sees himself as being of the Court of the Fogbound Cats, and by extension, one who is of the SF Bay Area, but he is old enough and has moved around enough, that he is loyal to people and not geographic locations. I don't know if that all made sense or not.

Izana is of Sidonia and loyal to her people. They believe in the chain of command and that the captain has Sidonia's best interest at heart, though they don't like how much combat duty Nagate gets. If I had to go into patriotism and politics aboard, I'd say Izana sees themself as of the military and separate from the civilian political structure. I know this isn't quite what teh question is, but there really isn't anything like that aboard Sidonia that we see in canon. The closest was the fringe group that protested in favor of a non-violent response to the gauna.

Sabine is Mandalorian to the core, even if she lives in exile. She will also align herself to the Rebellion and be fiercely loyal to it.

Which leaves Ahsoka, who at present sees herself as Jedi more than of the Republic; though the Jedi are part of the Republic. She'll learn both are not as good as she thinks they are now, but ultimately will believe in them. After all, the Empire was far worse, despite all the corruption and bloat the Republic had.

[deadeye_shot]

Hawkeye is part of the Amestrian army, so she has a certain amount of loyalty to the country. However, she firmly believes they are in the wrong for the extermination of Ishval and is covertly supporting Mustang's bid to be Fuhrer. She fully expects herself to be executed for war crimes in Ishval once he rises to power.

[oldmancreed]

Tess is American, but she thinks more in a global perspective rather than a national one.

Rose doesn't really think about it and doesn't pay attention to politics. But the 4th of July fireworks are pretty neat!

Kylo is... sort of patriotic. He feels quite strongly about the First Order.

Creed, oddly, felt compelled to fight for the Unites States in several wars, though I don't think it had anything to do with patriotism. He doesn't care much unless it affects him directly, so mutant laws and such. If you were to ask him, he'd say he was Canadian.

[cottoncandypink]

Not even a little bit. Wilford didn’t get to do a lot of quintessentially American things growing up, and he’s never seen Korea outside of a map, so the only culture he knows from there is what his parents brought with them. Growing up, he’d always been an outsider on both fronts, and it’s hard to be patriotic at a time when the political climate is wary of immigrants. Once he left home, he didn’t really have much of a reason to assimilate any further than was required to stay in college and get a job.

He does like the Fourth of July though. Any holiday where you get to cook a lot of food and blow shit up is his favourite holiday. And he’s missing it this year.

[i_am_your_host]

Emcee: Oof, these are loaded questions. Where to begin? Emcee obviously hates what Germany has become, because it's his home, and now he has to leave it. He's never been patriotic, and definitely not nationalistic -- which is not to say that he doesn't appreciate his own culture, because he does. He's just...not going to fight or die for it. If anything, he loves Berlin the most since it made him who he is, and would call himself a Berliner just as much as he identifies as a German. But he can't wait to be a New Yorker and an American as well.

Pam: Really does not give a fuck. Technically, she would be considered a Vampire-American due to U.S. legislation declaring vampires to be citizens. Which means they get to legally own businesses and pay taxes. Yay. Whatever.

Cassidy: He emigrated to America from Ireland because that was just the thing to do at the time. America had always been a fabled kind of place, especially in the early part of the twentieth century, and for him it really was a land of opportunity. These days, while he's very skeptical and critical of the government (he's a bit of a conspiracy nut), he still loves the idea of America.

Floki: His loyalty is more toward people and culture than a land with borders. And he is very proud of his Viking heritage and the place that shaped him, and would most certainly go to war to defend it.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Yamato doesn't really have strong views either way on Japan as a whole, but he can be quite fiercely proud of specific places within it -- he's got Odaiba pride in spades, and he's shown getting protective a few times over Shimane Prefecture, where his paternal grandparents live and where it's implied he and Takeru were born (and where their namesake, mythical king Yamato Takeru, died/turned into a bird).

Eden values Daybreak Town insofar as he values the practical function it serves as a place he can live. That said, he's started to pick up on the fact that people in-bar often quickly become (pretty justifiably) wary the more they hear about the town, and that serves to make him somewhat suspicious of it as well.

[iprotectyou]

Baze is fiercely loyal to Jedha, as that's his home which he never planned to leave. But we all know what happened to Jedha.

Autor has a certain amount of pride as a German, but at the moment, his plans are to flee the country to escape war. In his heart, he'll always be German, but he'll probably embrace America.

[inlovewithwords]

Eriond: Doesn't actually have national attachments. He does love his home planet!

Lois: is American and proud of it, even if she is aware sometimes as a country it sucks. She's an Army brat, and while as she gets older she will get more aware and more jaded, some part of that attitude towards America won't leave her, that it can truly be the greatest nation if its people try.

Evelyn: lol what affiliation. Like, yeah, she's a Free Marcher, technically, but... no. Just no. She's a mage before she's any nationality, and that's not exactly a good place to be.

R2: Not terribly system or authority-entity attached. More to his people. He is proud to be his meatbags' superior keeper.

Anakin: Might profess some towards Jedi and/or Republic, but... to be honest, he doesn't feel all that much attachment to either of those as concepts. He has a problem that he doesn't know how to define himself if not as a Jedi, and that to be a Jedi he must be Textbook Perfect, but... let's face it, he's bad at honesty with himself, but if he were honest, those are not where his loyalties lie.
Vader: I wouldn't call it patriotism or anything. He just htinks the Empire is the only correct way and also he's... like... totally ruling the galaxy, right? Okay well as second but still that's... something... ish... >_<

Tavi: Loves Alera more than his life. He would not consider himself patriotic, I think. For one, he's far too dead set on seeing Alera integrate with other species and also too set on undermining the structures that have defined Alera for centuries. He loves the people and he loves the land and he wants them to have a new and better future, but it's not at all one that looks like what it's been. And that's good! For another, he... is pretty open about all the ways Alera's horribly broken in comparison to some places and much better in other ways. It's no better or worse than anywhere else, but it's his, and he loves it. ... So yeah, idek. Also it's weird, as he's kind of the central figurehead of the Realm? And is also working to change that, long-term, even though he's definitely got some issues of being The Protagonist... it's complicated. I think the answer is that he's Aleran to the bone, it defines much of who and what he is--but life and equitable future comes first beyond any sense of national or species identity, and that he wants "Aleran" to mean something different than he does now. If that makes sense.

[strongest_faith]

Alec considers himself a New Yorker but not an American. His loyalty is to Idris and the Clave, and no matter how much of a New Yorker he is (he's lived there most of his life), he still thinks of Alicante as home and misses being there.

Eowyn is very, very patriotic toward both Rohan and the House of Eorl. She identifies herself primarily as Rohirrim and sister-daughter to the king.

Orpheus was, once upon a time, proud to be Thracian, but as most people have never even heard of Thrace, that's sort of faded. The Thrace he knew no longer exists.

[for_everyone]

Obviously, neither Kanan nor Hera have any love for the Empire.

Before Order 66, Kanan did feel strongly about being a part of the Jedi Order and preserving the Republic. In retrospect he wouldn't say he… really knew that much about either of those. And he doesn't really have a homeworld (technically he's from Coruscant, but he has no particular connection to it beyond growing up in the Jedi Temple). But in some ways, not having an allegiance to any particular place is more in line with Jedi teachings.

Hera is from Ryloth, and does have a strong connection to her homeworld and the area where she grew up. Her father was something like the equivalent of a "nationalist" for Twi'leks and Ryloth, and he was always very skeptical of outsider interference on the planet, including from the Republic. Cham Syndulla's alliance with the Republic was really born out of necessity to combat the Separatist invasion, and as he feared, the Republic became the Empire, and thus yet another invader. Growing up, Hera felt first and foremost aligned with Ryloth – but as she grew older, and as she more and more sought out pilots and others to learn about space travelers, she also felt more and more like a part of the greater galaxy. Which is why, against her father's wishes, and despite her own love for her world, she ultimately chose to leave Ryloth to try to help the galaxy as a whole.

[chanter1944]

Sariel IDs as both a Federation citizen and a human, more broadly, and as a Lucian specifically, and none of these things are at all mutually exclusive. She's got a fair amount of national pride despite the world-and-more government her corner of the 'verse has going, and it's entirely genuine. She won't be ridiculously over the top about that pride, but she'll definitely show it.

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Bastion doesn't feel much of a connection with the country they were built in, since they didn't get a chance to participate in it culturally or civically and were in fact built for the purpose of destroying and/or conquering it. (Well, not so much Germany in particular as human civilization in general, but still.) I'm not actually sure if they count as a citizen, mainly because of that last point. But on the other hand I think they do think of the Black Forest as their (original) home, since they spent a lot of time living there with Ganymede after they reactivated. And in the bar when people ask them where they're from they usually cite Watchpoint: Gibraltar first, since that's where they live now and it might be a while before they can go back to visit the Black Forest.

Homestuck doesn't present Alternia as a complete monoculture, but I don't think they actually have countries (everyone is a citizen of the Alternian Empire) even though different parts of the planet have different cultures. The only one mentioned is Eastern Alternia, which is across an ocean from where the other named troll characters live, and is similar to Japan. Aradia's dancestor Damara is from the Beforan version of it. Damara speaks in badly translated Japanese but the other Beforan trolls can... actually they can't understand her so much as pick out a few words, but they attribute this to her having a thick accent rather than speaking a different language entirely. It might be a mutually intelligible language or a different dialect, possibly, in addition to the accent thing. Anyway, Aradia is from the same unnamed region as the other Hivebent trolls, and she never met her ancestor before Sgrub, so that aspect of her heritage is pretty much inconsequential to her pre-apocalypse life. She wasn't particularly patriotic or pro-Empire beforehand, but bringing it down was not the point of compiling Sgrub, it just had the unfortunate side effect of pummelling Alternia with meteors and causing the deaths of every living troll in the universe except for Her Imperious Condescension by means of Glb'golyb's psychic screeching. The main characters escaped into the Medium before that point.

Thurlow is from England, during the era of the British Empire; London isn't really in England anymore, but they grew up in Liverpool. They're somewhat proud of being English but not much for nationalism and they're fairly cynical about their government, the royal family, and governments just in general. They figure the Masters of the Bazaar may be monstrous bat-creatures but aren't really a worse government than the humans they replaced. (The Masters insist that they aren't governing Fallen London outside of economic matters. No one is particularly fooled. In the last few years there have been mayors elected who aren't space bats, though.)

[ceitfianna]

Cassian identifies as a Festian even though he hasn't lived there since he was a little boy but its part of his identity. The Empire isn't his government, its what he's fighting against to make the galaxy better. For him the language of restore the Republic doesn't feel right since he grew up on a Separatist planet and fought with them before joining the Rebellion. The closest thing he has to a national identity is seeing himself as a Festian. Being part of the Rebellion is huge for him but doesn't map the same way.

Quentin is Canadian and proud of it. He's also connected to being part of the Westlands, the Fae name for North America and feels protective of the Duchy of Shadowed Hills.

In my headcanon, Charles' mother was English and so while he's proud of being American, his English heritage matters a lot to him and he's always struggling with how being a mutant fits into both of those identities. He's skeptical of unquestioning patriotism because he's been a little too close to those who have suffered from war but he respects the ideals of the United States.

William is proud to be American, his father fought for the Union in the Civil War and so that matters a lot to how he sees himself. He knows that he's living in a Territory that's not a State yet but he's proud of what America has done.

Sameth is very proud of being from the Old Kingdom, he knows and loves his land on a deep level thanks to the Charter.

Demeter doesn't really think too deeply in terms of national identity other than that she is Greek. She has a great love for Southern France where she lives now but to her land is land and borders cause problems.

Moist is technically from Uberwald but its not that important to him, its where he came from. He considers himself to be from wherever he needs to be.

Will S. loves Nottingham and thinks of himself as being from Nottingham before from England.

Ivan has love and duty for Barrayar in his blood and he loves and respects his Emperor and home.

Tumnus loves Narnia so much and is proud to be a Narnian.