ALL MY STORIES ARE TAKING FOREVER AND IT IS DEMORALIZING.

SO THIS IS NOW A DRABBLE THREAD.

Gimme a prompt, you get (exactly!) 100 words. Hetalia characters only! No porn! And if you make me research anything for a frickin drabble, I will resent you. Other than that, anything goes! I'll do as many as are fun in no particular order until I get tired of it and go back to work on my real stories, la la la.

OKAY, GO.

I've always thought the history of Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg) was interesting anyway, but today I found out that Kaliningrad Oblast--a tiny spit of land on the Baltic Sea that's roughly the size of Connecticut, mind you--contains 90% of the world's amber reserves.

( So...let me see if I understand the history of this region properly. )

Title: Little Lights
Originally posted: Here, for youkofujima
Length: 2000 words (oh God I can't believe I wrote 2000 words about this)
Characters/Pairings: Russia/America.
Premise: The boys check into a good old-fashioned American autohotel by mistake.
Time period: 1980s
Smuttiness: 4/10
Funnyness: 8/10
Wrist slashiness: 2/10
Warm-and-fuzziness: 6/10
Lolhistoryness: 2/10
Violence: 0/10
Would I like it?: Apparently I will write about absolutely anything if you catch me at 3 AM. WARNING: THIS FIC CONTAINS MARVIN GAYE LYRICS.

I am so very sorry, about so very much.

( Read it behind the cut. )

Hey guys. You're the most geographically diverse group of people I know, so I was hoping to get some feedback about something.

( I need to move back to America. Like, STAT. Do you have any suggestions about where I should I go? )

Title: Here Lie We
Originally posted: Here, for the CMC Event at the russiamerica comm. ♥ Prompt: Propaganda.
Length: 1,400 words.
Characters/Pairings: Primarily England. Also, America. Implied Russia/America.
Premise: Unsure what it might accomplish, England loans America a book that has only become more relevant with time.
Time period: 1984, of course.
Smuttiness: 0/10
Funnyness: 0/10
Wrist slashiness: 5/10
Warm-and-fuzziness: 0/10
Lolhistoryness: 3/10
Violence: 1/10
Would I like it?: It's a lit fic! Every fandom writer who aspires to be really overbearingly pretentious has to write a lit fic sooner or later. This one's mine! Definitely will be more obtuse if you're not familiar with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

( Read it behind the cut. )

Title: Five Six Seven Eight
Originally posted: Here, for the CMC Event at russiamerica. Day 6 prompt: gamble.
Length: 1,100 words.
Characters/Pairings: Russia/America.
Premise: America is a fail spy. Also, Russian pistols hold more bullets than you think.
Time period: Cold War sometime after 1969, I guess, since I make a so-veiled-you-might-miss-it reference to the Space Race.
Smuttiness: 0/10
Funnyness: 4/10
Wrist slashiness: 0/10
Warm-and-fuzziness: 3/10
Lolhistoryness: 0/10
Violence: 6/10
Would I like it?: It started life as a 600-word drabble-y thing, and then it exploded into a confetti shower of America's retarded inner monologue and him getting shot at a lot. That sound like fun?

( Read it behind the cut. )

I'd like to help!

( Find out how! )

Title: His Garden
Originally posted: At hetaliasunshine, for mizumimi! Thank you erueru_2d for answering random questions like the magic fact fairy you are.
Length: 1,800 words.
Characters/Pairings: Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus.
Premise: The world's strangest family spends a lovely, peaceful day together.
Time period: Modern.
Smuttiness: 2/10? For Belarus's weirdness? XD
Funnyness: 2/10
Wrist slashiness: 3/10
Lolhistoryness: 2/10
Violence: 0/10
Man, I should really put a baww-meter on here.

Would I like it?: To be honest, I'm not sure this qualifies as "fluff." I'd call it "sweet, but poignant?" Look, it's Russia's family. That should tell you what you need to know.

( Read it behind the cut. )

I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out, since I didn't really know what I thought England looked like 4 realz before I started it.



But goddamn, England. Haircut. I'm serious.

Headcanon: France broke England's nose in three places at the Battle of Castillon (which took place not too long after England had burned his girlfriend at the stake). The French victory at Castillon ended the Hundred Years War, threw the English off the European continent, and ended English territorial ambitions on the continent forever. If you ask England about why his nose is slightly crooked, he has no idea what you're talking about and it must just be the light in here.

It was possibly the most satisfying crunch of France's life.

Title: Who's Got Spirit
Originally posted: At hetaliasunshine, for anon Hazel!
Length: 3,200 words.
Characters/Pairings: Canada, Poland. A little America, France, and England thrown in at the end.
Premise: Stuck inside at a rained-out, boring conference, Poland takes Canada to task for his low spirits and teaches him how to B-E aggressive.
Time period: Modern.
Smuttiness: 0/10, minus some harmless innuendo.
Funnyness: 5/10
Wrist slashiness: 2/10
Lolhistoryness: 1/10
Violence: 1/10
Would I like it?: I nearly didn't finish this in time, because every time I started working on it, I had to take a break to watch the cheer battle scene from Bring It On to "inspire myself." Like, eleven times. I wish I were kidding.

( Read it behind the cut. )

Title: Brunnhilde: The Legend Begins
Originally posted: Here, for a secret prompt.
Length: 2,300 words.
Characters/Pairings: Germany, Prussia.
Premise: Why is Prussia such an irresponsible dickbag? And where did that chick come from, anyway?
Time period: Cracky modern.
Smuttiness: 0/10
Funnyness: 7/10
Wrist slashiness: 0/10
Lolhistoryness: 0/10
Violence: 0/10
Would I like it?: Yes, I still write fic, shut up. Happy (belated) German Unification Day! Have some cute German brothers fic.

( Read it behind the cut. )

Um, nothing clever to go with this. Sorry if I haven't gotten back to you over the last few days (my inbox has filled up to hella intimidating levels: note to self, do not get sick after posting a discussion thread in future). I have been guzzling green tea and peppermints, and whimpering, and have not been very good company.

Please forgive any unanswered messages, or messages from like last week that inexplicably get replies over the next few days, and you are all "wtf? Like I even remember this conversation anymore?" about it. I will be back soon!

...Okay I'll feel bad if I don't include at least a fun Russia fact with this post, so here you go:

In 1992, a Moscow circus left 93 animals on a Japanese dock to make room on its ship for newly bought cars. (Information from the Ports and Harbours Bureau of Yokohama City, Japan.)

I am not saying that somebody ficcing this will cure my plague, but I'm also not saying that it won't.

So, I haven't been feeling especially inspired, lately...but I HAVE been feeling more-than-usually curious! Would anybody want to help me out with the first bit of that by indulging the second bit?

Tell me something about where you're from that is very common and ordinary, but that people from other places might not know about! I'm looking for the facts that make you think "Oh, I shouldn't share that, that's so obvious and normal," and then "...wait, does anybody do that but us?"

RESTRICTIONS: No holidays! Every country has its own holidays, but that's too obvious. I want to know daily life kind of things!

ALSO: No relics of past or present extra-national organizations! Citizens of the Commonwealth and the former Soviet Union, I am looking at you. Tell me something about your country specifically.

Example of something pretty surprising to foreigners that is extremely normal in America:
-- Daily, state-mandated declarations of loyalty. American students, K through 12, both in private and public schools, say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. (It goes like this, if you're curious: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I guarantee you that any American you ever meet will be able to spit this out in under five seconds. In my headcanon, America says it to himself every morning, but only when he knows he won't get caught. >_> )

ONE LAST NOTE TO OTHER AMERICANS: If you can think of more stuff, that is awesome, please share it, but no regional things. I mean, grits are very normal in parts of America, but in other parts it's all, what's a grit. America is kind of a bad country for this, because we never shut up about our culture, so people tend to already know about America-only things like Halloween, or how we sing the national anthem at baseball games, or whatever.

The comm is ready!

Go sign up! There's a new chapter up and everything! the_chosen_end! Free hammer and sickle to every new member!

On a more serious note though, go sign up, 'cause for real, there's not gonna be any more TCE on our journals. The old Index will no longer be updated. And the new chapter is the first chapter of the Cold War. Like, officially. I know, right? We made it.

TCE is getting its own comm! It's just gotten too unwieldy for me and wizzard890 to continue coordinating between our journals. To help us out in our move, would anyone be willing to lend a hand with a layout, and community settings, and all of that fancy "making the site work" stuff?

We'll make a proper announcement when the comm goes live--probably in a week or so--and in the mean time, we're going to be spamming the shit out of it as we repost all of the previous TCE chapters. So...now might not be the best time to join. If you want to brag about being an early adopter, though, you can find our upcoming digs at the_chosen_end.

Number of parking tickets given to former Soviet embassy employees in Washington, D.C. that remain unpaid: 50,693.