Post by Italy Veneziano on Nov 18, 2010 17:44:51 GMT -5
Nation: North Italy/Italy Veneziano
Name: Feliciano Vargas
Gender: Male
Appearance of Age: 22
Hair Color: Brown/auburn
Eye Color: Brown
Height: 172 cm/5 ft. 7 in.
Weight: 65 kg/143 lb
Appearance:
Personality: Italy enjoys the simpler things in life – food, sleep, pretty girls, and the like. He’s shockingly innocent for the amount of perverted influences in his life (Rome, France, Hungary, and, more recently, Germany). Despite, or perhaps because of, this, Italy has no shame at all. If you tell him to dance naked for a bowl of pasta, he’d throw off his clothes and start dancing without a second thought. He doesn’t think a lot about what he says because he just really cannot read the atmosphere at all; any question, no matter how awkward or tactless, just come straight out of his mouth. And a lot comes out of his mouth. Those that hang out with him for any amount of time have to learn to tune him out because you really can’t listen to everything he says; your brain would implode from the number of words he can speak per minute. He’s also the furthest from confrontational you’ll ever find anywhere; he’s likely to be dashing (very, very fast) in the opposite direction at the first sign of a fight (or, failing that, trying to hide behind someone bigger and stronger and more likely to win). Yes, this makes him a bit of a coward. Yes, he’s super, super high-maintenance, refuses all but the best food and entertainment, and is extremely clingy. Yes, he’s all-around lazy, he hates work, he whines a lot, and he’s really quite useless a lot of the time. But, Italy is a happy person; it takes a lot to put him really, truly down. If you ever need someone to cheer you up, you should definitely go to Italy first; he’s like happiness given human shape. He’s also fiercely loyal to the people he loves, and he has a big heart, so he can befriend just about anyone!
Likes: (These do not need to be elaborated on, just listing is fine... elaboration is always nice, though.)
+ Pasta, of course! Well, food in general, really, but there’s no doubt that pasta is his ultimate favorite!
+ Pretty girls! He’s a flirt; no way around it. He becomes surprisingly charming around them.
+ Sleep. There’s no point at all in getting between him and his siesta, seeing as he’ll just fall asleep on you either way.
+ Football (aka soccer for the Americansof which I am one, but shh, quiet). It’s likely one of the only things he’s fiercely competitive about.
+ All his friends and family! Well, Romano is frequently mean to him, and Germany is…Germany, but he loves them all the same still.
Dislikes: (These do not need to be elaborated on, just listing is fine... elaboration is always nice, though.)
- Fighting of any sort.
- Icky food. (Icky to him, anyway. He has high, high standards for food) This causes him to stay away from England quite a bit.
- Work. Why would he want to work when he could be playing or talking to his friends or making pasta or eating pasta or…you get the idea.
- Mean people. They frequently make him cry.
- Scary things in general, really. He has a very low tolerance for fear.
Fears: (These do not need to be elaborated on, just listing is fine... elaboration is always nice, though.)
~ Bodily harm/pain. He’ll do just about anything to avoid it. This does make him a coward, yes, but it’s really, really scary when someone is pointing a gun at you, ve~!
~ Losing those he loves. Whether it’s because they leave him or because they die, he can’t stand the thought.
~ Hunger. It’s the worst pain, especially for him.
~ A large number of other things that just generally freak people out: creepy-crawlies, icky-stickies, things that go “thump” in the night, etc. He’s not a very brave person at all.
Strengths: (These do not need to be elaborated on, just listing is fine... elaboration is always nice, though.)
+ Art. His country has a history of great painters, sculptors, poets, musicians, and the like, and Italy, in turn, shares these talents.
+ Cheerfulness. It might be naïve or downright annoying at times, but Italy can always find something to be happy and hopeful about.
+ Loyalty. (Though some might call it clinginess.) If you’re his friend, you’d better like him around because he’ll stick with you until the end of time.
+ He can be surprisingly observant in certain cases; he’ll notice little things other people don’tlike the fact that Austria is PLAYING THE PIANO IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN This can be a bad thing for some people; he’s good at spotting relationships and doesn’t understand the concept of keeping them secret.
+ Running away. Very, very, very fast.
Weaknesses: (These do not need to be elaborated on, just listing is fine... elaboration is always nice, though.)
- Physically, he’s just…weak. Germany’s tried and failed to whip him into shape. He tends to leave the manual labor to his bigger, stronger friends.
- Laziness. He’d much rather sit around and enjoy the sun than do anything at all. He only gets motivated when threatened or when impressing pretty women.
- Lack of atmosphere-reading abilities. So…tactlessness, I suppose? He’s like a kid; he says what’s on his mind, even if it’s super-awkward.
- Cowardice. It’s been mentioned before several times, but Italy gets scared very easily and does not cope well with it.
- Easily distracted. He’s a little bit, kinda-sorta, ADH– ve, a butterfly!
History:
The last Roman emperor loses power in 476 AD! Italy’s an attractive bit of real estate any empire-in-the-making would love to add to its territory, so it gets invaded a bit over the following centuries. This starts with a group called the Lombards, from central Europe, who take over and form the Lombard Kingdom of Italy in the late 500s, which lasts for a while. The Pope then asks for help from this group called the Franks (onhonhon~) to get rid of them. Charlemagne (whooo!) comes in and kicks Lombard butt, and he’s crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in the year 800. He’s strong and awesome and stuff, and Italy’s pretty unified under his rule, but then he dies, and there are succession crises all over the place for the next few centuries. Meanwhile, there were things with the Arabs in the South, but that’s for Romano to deal with
Italy’s big source of pull with the rest of Europe comes, of course, from the Pope, which shows itself quite clearly with the Crusades, where a bunch of people from all over the Catholic countriesattempt to band together and attempt to kill heathens and attempt to take back the Holy Land of Jerusalem for Jesus! Yeah, they don’t go over very well.
But, in the 11th and 12th centuries, after the Byzantines and Arabs began to decline, Italy begins to take the lead! Italian city-states/maritime republics are trading powerhouses in the Mediterranean, and they’re some of the biggest and most important cities in all of Europe. And, of course, at this time, everyone’s feeling all Renaissance, with math and science and art and technology and free thought separate from the church all over the place! There’s a big setback with the bubonic plague and all, but otherwise, Italy’s all-around awesome.
Then, America gets itself discovered (by an Italian, note), and trade shifts away from the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic instead, so the maritime republics begin to decline. Spain becomes the strongest nation in all Europe, with France close behind, and Italy just can’t fend off these boss-as-hell nations when they invade. North is taken by France, South is taken by Spain, and they continued to fight over several bits in the middle until the late 16th century, when Spain finally beats the French decisively. Italy becomes a Spanish colony for a good century and a half. Spain is, surprisingly, quite a jerk to the Italians, with bad administration and heavy taxes all around. The Catholic church regains the power it had lost during the Renaissance (Spanish Inquisition, anyone?). Then, in the early 1700s, England, Holland, Savoy (a little kingdom in current northwest Italy), and Austria-Hungary beat both France AND Spain, and Austria-Hungary gains the most influence in Northern Italy for the next hundred years.
Note must be taken, at this point, that there was not actually one, unified “Italy,” just a bunch of weak little kingdoms around the peninsula, each with their own leaders. But! Then there was the French Revolution! And Napoleon! He and Austria-Hungary did not get on well at all, so he decided to fight them in Italy. France kicks butt, takes names, and unifies the peninsula under a single legal code and currency and stuff, and everything was awesome! Except for the taxes, the military drafts, and the killing, but hey, unity! Rest of Europe is all D:< and beats France up, drags him to the Congress of Vienna, and yells NO MORE OF YOUR REVOLUTIONARY MADNESS, YOU! They put old rulers back on their thrones, and Italy was handed back to Austria-Hungary, who patted him on the head and promised that the bad man was not coming back and that something like that would never happen again.
Then came a confusing time called the Risorgimento, or “resurgence”, which went until 1861. Dukes and kings had made revolutionary activities illegal, of course, but there were secret societies that did these things, right? So, people would rise up, but Austria-Hungary would be a bastard and knock them back down like a big game of Whack-A-Revolutionary. There was a revolution in 1848 that ALMOST MADE IT (the Pope was overthrown and everything!), but then Austria-Hungary got help from an international army, dammit, and everything went back to normal. Which sucked.
Unification started with this guy, the Prime Minister of Piedmont (which was in NW Italy, and was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia), Camillo Cavour. He figured that the French wanted Austria-Hungary out of Italy as much as they did, so he gets their help in a little expansion war. They managed to capture the Kingdom of Lombardy to their east. What happened next was totally unexpected. The people of Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and the papal state of Bologna all overthrew their leaders and asked to be annexed to Sardinia, and what was supposed to have been a nice little bit of expansion had turned into a full-out revolution. This development did not sit well with the French, who brought an end to the war. Sardinia, however, was allowed to keep all the land it had annexed in exchange for Nice and Savoy. So, almost the whole northern half of Italy is unified.
While that’s going on, there’s a nice little dictator named Garibaldi down in Sicily who starts at the toe of the boot and fights his way north (I won’t go into it too much, since it is South). Cavour wasn’t too sure about the guy’s intentions or about his loyalty to the Sardinian king, Victor Emmanuel II, so he sends men to stop Garibaldi short of Rome. Victor meets him around October 1860 (it’s still the same year), and Garibaldi voluntarily hands over all the land he’s captured to the Kingdom of Sardinia. Six months later, the king declares the land the new Kingdom of Italy. Yay, unification!
Well, there were two more bits that hadn’t been added yet – Veneto in the northeast (Venice) and Rome. Italy fights Austria-Hungary for control of Veneto in 1866! They lose, but their ally Prussia (whoooooo!) beat Austria-Hungary, and Italy gets to show up at the peace conference and take the land. Rome was a bit of a touchier issue, what with the Pope and the Catholic church and the French army there guarding it. However, in 1870, France had a war with Prussia (whoooooo!) and had to pull troops out of Rome to fight him, so Italy took his chance. They blasted a hole in the wall, stormed in, and captured the city within a few hours. Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy in 1871, though the Pope and the church wouldn’t recognize the country until much later.
Then there’s…kingdom-y stuff. But the next real exciting thing that happens is World War I. Italy stays neutral in the beginning, though views on the home front are pretty conflicted; some people, like a certain politician-turned-dictator, support the war, and others want to stay out of it. Then, the Allies offer Italy land if they win, and Italy joins on their side. They are completely unprepared for a modern, industrial war. They suffer a major defeat against Austria-Hungary, and they win no major battles; Italy just barely manages to win. Then, at Versailles, they end up getting none of the land they were promised, and they walk out, uber-pissed. And then life just sucks. They’ve got damages from the war, bunches have died, and the economy is shot. Two parties, the nationalists and the socialists, begin screaming about the humiliation from the war and about how they need to take action, but the traditional leaders don’t like socialism, no they don’t. So, from the nationalist party rises – you guessed it! – a lovely guy named Benito Mussolini and the idea of Fascism! October 1922, Mussolini, with his army of “Black Shirts”, marches on Rome in something called, funnily enough, the March on Rome. King Victor Emmanuel III placates him and asks if he wants to be prime minister, which, of course, he does. Then, yay, dictatorship! There are public works projects and new agricultural initiatives and new land in Africa, and all would be awesome if it weren’t for, you know, the tyranny and complete lack of rights and the threat that you might disappear in the night.
So then Italy goes and becomes BFFs with Hitler and Nazi Germany and follows them into World War II, which sucks on all fronts. The only thing Italy manages to win is France, and that was only because Germany had already taken care of it. The Allies invade Italy in 1943, Mussolini is removed and runs off to the north to set up the Italian Socialist Republic, which was really just continued Fascist rule by the Germans with Mussolini as a puppet leader, and the rest of Italy joins the side of the Allies. Up north, there’s a movement called the Resistenza that fights against the Germans, and…yeah. April 25, 1945, Italy manages to become free, Mussolini is shot and strung up with some of his collaborators, Italy becomes a republic in June of 1946, and all is happy!
Well…not really. They do give up a bit of land around the borders. Italy’s got this complicated system of government mainly dominated by the Christian Democratic Party and the Socialist Party. There’s a bunch of reforms in the 50’s, and Italy shoots up economically, with some help also from the Marshall Plan. Italy also becomes a member of NATO and the European Economic Community, which later turns into the EU. There’s also a big population shift from South to North (sorry, Romano~ T_T).
…There really isn’t a lot about the period after WWII. Um…the government apparently is not very efficient, and there’s a bunch of calls for reform. The current boss-man is Silvio Berlusconi. Aaaaaaand yeah! I think that’s it.
Allies:
Nowadays, everyone in the EU and NATO. He and Germany remain close, after everything.
Enemies:
No one is really out to get Italy; he’s just a lovable guy who loves pasta! In the past, he’s fought against France and Austria though, as well as the rest of the Allies in WWII.
Sample Post:
Italy tried not to fall asleep. He really tried. But it was warm in the room, and it was almost time for his siesta, and he’d just had a big meal of pasta, and England just kept talking, and he was just so bored. So he tried to fight back his yawns, but, try as he might, he just couldn’t help it.
England glared at him from the podium, of course, as did Germany from his seat, and he was pretty sure Romano was glaring at him from behind him, but he didn’t want to turn around and look. But they were always glaring for some reason or another, so it wasn’t as if it was anything new. But if Germany got too mad, he’d yell at him later, and Romano would probably yell at him anyway, and England wouldn’t yell at him, but would probably yell at France or America, and Italy liked France, and he sort of liked America because America was fun, even though his food tasted even worse than Germany’s ickiest sausages, so he didn’t want them to get yelled at, and he didn’t want to get yelled at either because Germany was scary when he yelled! So Italy sat up a little straighter and began trying to take notes on whatever England was talking about. But his note-taking gradually descended into doodling little plates of pasta and tomatoes and pictures of England with his eyebrows covering his face. At that point, Italy had completely forgotten about paying attention to what England was saying and was instead staring intently at his face, trying to imagine it covered in hair so as to produce a more accurate depiction. So at least he looked like he was paying attention!...right?
But then England finished his speech and made his way back to his seat, and Italy suddenly remembered that he was really, really tired. So, as America rose his hand to object to whatever it was England had been talking about, he beat him to it and whined, “I’m really boooored! Ve, can we have a break?”
Did you read the rules?
Awesome chicks eat pancakes! =D
Name: Feliciano Vargas
Gender: Male
Appearance of Age: 22
Hair Color: Brown/auburn
Eye Color: Brown
Height: 172 cm/5 ft. 7 in.
Weight: 65 kg/143 lb
Appearance:
Personality: Italy enjoys the simpler things in life – food, sleep, pretty girls, and the like. He’s shockingly innocent for the amount of perverted influences in his life (Rome, France, Hungary, and, more recently, Germany). Despite, or perhaps because of, this, Italy has no shame at all. If you tell him to dance naked for a bowl of pasta, he’d throw off his clothes and start dancing without a second thought. He doesn’t think a lot about what he says because he just really cannot read the atmosphere at all; any question, no matter how awkward or tactless, just come straight out of his mouth. And a lot comes out of his mouth. Those that hang out with him for any amount of time have to learn to tune him out because you really can’t listen to everything he says; your brain would implode from the number of words he can speak per minute. He’s also the furthest from confrontational you’ll ever find anywhere; he’s likely to be dashing (very, very fast) in the opposite direction at the first sign of a fight (or, failing that, trying to hide behind someone bigger and stronger and more likely to win). Yes, this makes him a bit of a coward. Yes, he’s super, super high-maintenance, refuses all but the best food and entertainment, and is extremely clingy. Yes, he’s all-around lazy, he hates work, he whines a lot, and he’s really quite useless a lot of the time. But, Italy is a happy person; it takes a lot to put him really, truly down. If you ever need someone to cheer you up, you should definitely go to Italy first; he’s like happiness given human shape. He’s also fiercely loyal to the people he loves, and he has a big heart, so he can befriend just about anyone!
Likes: (These do not need to be elaborated on, just listing is fine... elaboration is always nice, though.)
+ Pasta, of course! Well, food in general, really, but there’s no doubt that pasta is his ultimate favorite!
+ Pretty girls! He’s a flirt; no way around it. He becomes surprisingly charming around them.
+ Sleep. There’s no point at all in getting between him and his siesta, seeing as he’ll just fall asleep on you either way.
+ Football (aka soccer for the Americans
+ All his friends and family! Well, Romano is frequently mean to him, and Germany is…Germany, but he loves them all the same still.
Dislikes: (These do not need to be elaborated on, just listing is fine... elaboration is always nice, though.)
- Fighting of any sort.
- Icky food. (Icky to him, anyway. He has high, high standards for food) This causes him to stay away from England quite a bit.
- Work. Why would he want to work when he could be playing or talking to his friends or making pasta or eating pasta or…you get the idea.
- Mean people. They frequently make him cry.
- Scary things in general, really. He has a very low tolerance for fear.
Fears: (These do not need to be elaborated on, just listing is fine... elaboration is always nice, though.)
~ Bodily harm/pain. He’ll do just about anything to avoid it. This does make him a coward, yes, but it’s really, really scary when someone is pointing a gun at you, ve~!
~ Losing those he loves. Whether it’s because they leave him or because they die, he can’t stand the thought.
~ Hunger. It’s the worst pain, especially for him.
~ A large number of other things that just generally freak people out: creepy-crawlies, icky-stickies, things that go “thump” in the night, etc. He’s not a very brave person at all.
Strengths: (These do not need to be elaborated on, just listing is fine... elaboration is always nice, though.)
+ Art. His country has a history of great painters, sculptors, poets, musicians, and the like, and Italy, in turn, shares these talents.
+ Cheerfulness. It might be naïve or downright annoying at times, but Italy can always find something to be happy and hopeful about.
+ Loyalty. (Though some might call it clinginess.) If you’re his friend, you’d better like him around because he’ll stick with you until the end of time.
+ He can be surprisingly observant in certain cases; he’ll notice little things other people don’t
+ Running away. Very, very, very fast.
Weaknesses: (These do not need to be elaborated on, just listing is fine... elaboration is always nice, though.)
- Physically, he’s just…weak. Germany’s tried and failed to whip him into shape. He tends to leave the manual labor to his bigger, stronger friends.
- Laziness. He’d much rather sit around and enjoy the sun than do anything at all. He only gets motivated when threatened or when impressing pretty women.
- Lack of atmosphere-reading abilities. So…tactlessness, I suppose? He’s like a kid; he says what’s on his mind, even if it’s super-awkward.
- Cowardice. It’s been mentioned before several times, but Italy gets scared very easily and does not cope well with it.
- Easily distracted. He’s a little bit, kinda-sorta, ADH– ve, a butterfly!
History:
The last Roman emperor loses power in 476 AD! Italy’s an attractive bit of real estate any empire-in-the-making would love to add to its territory, so it gets invaded a bit over the following centuries. This starts with a group called the Lombards, from central Europe, who take over and form the Lombard Kingdom of Italy in the late 500s, which lasts for a while. The Pope then asks for help from this group called the Franks (onhonhon~) to get rid of them. Charlemagne (whooo!) comes in and kicks Lombard butt, and he’s crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in the year 800. He’s strong and awesome and stuff, and Italy’s pretty unified under his rule, but then he dies, and there are succession crises all over the place for the next few centuries. Meanwhile, there were things with the Arabs in the South, but that’s for Romano to deal with
Italy’s big source of pull with the rest of Europe comes, of course, from the Pope, which shows itself quite clearly with the Crusades, where a bunch of people from all over the Catholic countries
But, in the 11th and 12th centuries, after the Byzantines and Arabs began to decline, Italy begins to take the lead! Italian city-states/maritime republics are trading powerhouses in the Mediterranean, and they’re some of the biggest and most important cities in all of Europe. And, of course, at this time, everyone’s feeling all Renaissance, with math and science and art and technology and free thought separate from the church all over the place! There’s a big setback with the bubonic plague and all, but otherwise, Italy’s all-around awesome.
Then, America gets itself discovered (by an Italian, note), and trade shifts away from the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic instead, so the maritime republics begin to decline. Spain becomes the strongest nation in all Europe, with France close behind, and Italy just can’t fend off these boss-as-hell nations when they invade. North is taken by France, South is taken by Spain, and they continued to fight over several bits in the middle until the late 16th century, when Spain finally beats the French decisively. Italy becomes a Spanish colony for a good century and a half. Spain is, surprisingly, quite a jerk to the Italians, with bad administration and heavy taxes all around. The Catholic church regains the power it had lost during the Renaissance (Spanish Inquisition, anyone?). Then, in the early 1700s, England, Holland, Savoy (a little kingdom in current northwest Italy), and Austria-Hungary beat both France AND Spain, and Austria-Hungary gains the most influence in Northern Italy for the next hundred years.
Note must be taken, at this point, that there was not actually one, unified “Italy,” just a bunch of weak little kingdoms around the peninsula, each with their own leaders. But! Then there was the French Revolution! And Napoleon! He and Austria-Hungary did not get on well at all, so he decided to fight them in Italy. France kicks butt, takes names, and unifies the peninsula under a single legal code and currency and stuff, and everything was awesome! Except for the taxes, the military drafts, and the killing, but hey, unity! Rest of Europe is all D:< and beats France up, drags him to the Congress of Vienna, and yells NO MORE OF YOUR REVOLUTIONARY MADNESS, YOU! They put old rulers back on their thrones, and Italy was handed back to Austria-Hungary, who patted him on the head and promised that the bad man was not coming back and that something like that would never happen again.
Then came a confusing time called the Risorgimento, or “resurgence”, which went until 1861. Dukes and kings had made revolutionary activities illegal, of course, but there were secret societies that did these things, right? So, people would rise up, but Austria-Hungary would be a bastard and knock them back down like a big game of Whack-A-Revolutionary. There was a revolution in 1848 that ALMOST MADE IT (the Pope was overthrown and everything!), but then Austria-Hungary got help from an international army, dammit, and everything went back to normal. Which sucked.
Unification started with this guy, the Prime Minister of Piedmont (which was in NW Italy, and was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia), Camillo Cavour. He figured that the French wanted Austria-Hungary out of Italy as much as they did, so he gets their help in a little expansion war. They managed to capture the Kingdom of Lombardy to their east. What happened next was totally unexpected. The people of Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and the papal state of Bologna all overthrew their leaders and asked to be annexed to Sardinia, and what was supposed to have been a nice little bit of expansion had turned into a full-out revolution. This development did not sit well with the French, who brought an end to the war. Sardinia, however, was allowed to keep all the land it had annexed in exchange for Nice and Savoy. So, almost the whole northern half of Italy is unified.
While that’s going on, there’s a nice little dictator named Garibaldi down in Sicily who starts at the toe of the boot and fights his way north (I won’t go into it too much, since it is South). Cavour wasn’t too sure about the guy’s intentions or about his loyalty to the Sardinian king, Victor Emmanuel II, so he sends men to stop Garibaldi short of Rome. Victor meets him around October 1860 (it’s still the same year), and Garibaldi voluntarily hands over all the land he’s captured to the Kingdom of Sardinia. Six months later, the king declares the land the new Kingdom of Italy. Yay, unification!
Well, there were two more bits that hadn’t been added yet – Veneto in the northeast (Venice) and Rome. Italy fights Austria-Hungary for control of Veneto in 1866! They lose, but their ally Prussia (whoooooo!) beat Austria-Hungary, and Italy gets to show up at the peace conference and take the land. Rome was a bit of a touchier issue, what with the Pope and the Catholic church and the French army there guarding it. However, in 1870, France had a war with Prussia (whoooooo!) and had to pull troops out of Rome to fight him, so Italy took his chance. They blasted a hole in the wall, stormed in, and captured the city within a few hours. Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy in 1871, though the Pope and the church wouldn’t recognize the country until much later.
Then there’s…kingdom-y stuff. But the next real exciting thing that happens is World War I. Italy stays neutral in the beginning, though views on the home front are pretty conflicted; some people, like a certain politician-turned-dictator, support the war, and others want to stay out of it. Then, the Allies offer Italy land if they win, and Italy joins on their side. They are completely unprepared for a modern, industrial war. They suffer a major defeat against Austria-Hungary, and they win no major battles; Italy just barely manages to win. Then, at Versailles, they end up getting none of the land they were promised, and they walk out, uber-pissed. And then life just sucks. They’ve got damages from the war, bunches have died, and the economy is shot. Two parties, the nationalists and the socialists, begin screaming about the humiliation from the war and about how they need to take action, but the traditional leaders don’t like socialism, no they don’t. So, from the nationalist party rises – you guessed it! – a lovely guy named Benito Mussolini and the idea of Fascism! October 1922, Mussolini, with his army of “Black Shirts”, marches on Rome in something called, funnily enough, the March on Rome. King Victor Emmanuel III placates him and asks if he wants to be prime minister, which, of course, he does. Then, yay, dictatorship! There are public works projects and new agricultural initiatives and new land in Africa, and all would be awesome if it weren’t for, you know, the tyranny and complete lack of rights and the threat that you might disappear in the night.
So then Italy goes and becomes BFFs with Hitler and Nazi Germany and follows them into World War II, which sucks on all fronts. The only thing Italy manages to win is France, and that was only because Germany had already taken care of it. The Allies invade Italy in 1943, Mussolini is removed and runs off to the north to set up the Italian Socialist Republic, which was really just continued Fascist rule by the Germans with Mussolini as a puppet leader, and the rest of Italy joins the side of the Allies. Up north, there’s a movement called the Resistenza that fights against the Germans, and…yeah. April 25, 1945, Italy manages to become free, Mussolini is shot and strung up with some of his collaborators, Italy becomes a republic in June of 1946, and all is happy!
Well…not really. They do give up a bit of land around the borders. Italy’s got this complicated system of government mainly dominated by the Christian Democratic Party and the Socialist Party. There’s a bunch of reforms in the 50’s, and Italy shoots up economically, with some help also from the Marshall Plan. Italy also becomes a member of NATO and the European Economic Community, which later turns into the EU. There’s also a big population shift from South to North (sorry, Romano~ T_T).
…There really isn’t a lot about the period after WWII. Um…the government apparently is not very efficient, and there’s a bunch of calls for reform. The current boss-man is Silvio Berlusconi. Aaaaaaand yeah! I think that’s it.
Allies:
Nowadays, everyone in the EU and NATO. He and Germany remain close, after everything.
Enemies:
No one is really out to get Italy; he’s just a lovable guy who loves pasta! In the past, he’s fought against France and Austria though, as well as the rest of the Allies in WWII.
Sample Post:
Italy tried not to fall asleep. He really tried. But it was warm in the room, and it was almost time for his siesta, and he’d just had a big meal of pasta, and England just kept talking, and he was just so bored. So he tried to fight back his yawns, but, try as he might, he just couldn’t help it.
England glared at him from the podium, of course, as did Germany from his seat, and he was pretty sure Romano was glaring at him from behind him, but he didn’t want to turn around and look. But they were always glaring for some reason or another, so it wasn’t as if it was anything new. But if Germany got too mad, he’d yell at him later, and Romano would probably yell at him anyway, and England wouldn’t yell at him, but would probably yell at France or America, and Italy liked France, and he sort of liked America because America was fun, even though his food tasted even worse than Germany’s ickiest sausages, so he didn’t want them to get yelled at, and he didn’t want to get yelled at either because Germany was scary when he yelled! So Italy sat up a little straighter and began trying to take notes on whatever England was talking about. But his note-taking gradually descended into doodling little plates of pasta and tomatoes and pictures of England with his eyebrows covering his face. At that point, Italy had completely forgotten about paying attention to what England was saying and was instead staring intently at his face, trying to imagine it covered in hair so as to produce a more accurate depiction. So at least he looked like he was paying attention!...right?
But then England finished his speech and made his way back to his seat, and Italy suddenly remembered that he was really, really tired. So, as America rose his hand to object to whatever it was England had been talking about, he beat him to it and whined, “I’m really boooored! Ve, can we have a break?”
Did you read the rules?
Awesome chicks eat pancakes! =D
