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[personal profile] silverfoxflower
Title: You are France
Fandom:
Hetalia
Genre: Character study, Slash
Word Count: ~1300
Pairing: Implied France/Various
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Vague references to past rape

Written for: No real reason at all
Notes: First fic of any kind in a while. Somehow writing Hetalia can always snap me out of a bad writer's block. Had this on my hard drive for a while before I managed to actually finish it, so I hope the first part doesn't read like a completely different style than the second, lol. Also, what is it with my Hetalia fics lately? I swear, I used to write decent PWPs, and now they are all character studies mumble mumble mumble.
Beta: The sweet [livejournal.com profile] chelz710 was kind enough to squee over this for me, even though this isn't her fandom

Summary: "You have hundreds of years of glorious and inglorious history - the grandeur of Versallies, the bloody revolution, the art, the food, the cinema and haute couture that is just so much better than everyone else’s. You still consider yourself a respected power of the world, although, realistically speaking, after Napoleon there really hasn’t been any reason for the rest of Europe to quiver in their boots."
Disclaimer: No ownership was claimed in the making of this nonsense.

Now with a lovely Chinese translation by \o/ Lets all give cookies and hugs <3




You are France.

You have hundreds of years of glorious and inglorious history - the grandeur of Versallies, the bloody revolution, the art, the food, the cinema and haute couture that is just so much better than everyone else’s. You still consider yourself a respected power of the world, although, realistically speaking, after Napoleon there really hasn’t been any reason for the rest of Europe to quiver in their boots. But from the sun-sweetened banks of Rivera to the dewy streets of Paris, you will always be the one, the only, the heart-breakingly beautiful.



germany.

Germany’s like an abusive boyfriend who came out of rehab and is doing surprisingly well. Actually, looking at his economy and all, you’re tempted to let him get into your pants just for the fiscal benefits. You have always been easy that way.

So you two are kind of working together now, mother and father of a precocious toddler called the EU. You and Germany have your married-couple spats, but then again he tiptoes around you sometimes, whenever the whole occupational rape thing comes up. You haven’t forgiven or forgotten, but he does look pretty cute when he’s stammering, blushing hot under his stiff collar, and you just want to strip it all off and unleash the repressed sex animal you know is underneath. Actually, according to you, everyone has a repressed sex animal. Who, preferably, should be released by you.

It would be a crazy concept if you were human, but as a nation you’ve had forty, fifty years to come to grips with this specific trauma, and hundreds of years of practice in coping with trauma in general. You haven’t lost all of those wars and gotten away with it, after all.

And anyway, with Germany you feel something you haven’t felt in years - hope. Like the start of something new. And fuck if you two haven’t been bitter to the marrow since the times of the Hapsburgs, but for the first time you can look into his sharp blue eyes and think, this, this is what I can chose for myself.



england.

You two have always been a sort of tragic love story. The bitter sniping of the 100-years war. You still haven’t forgiven him for killing your loveliest saint. The bickering over the Hapsburg throne, where he gathered all of Europe to gang up on you and a weakened Spain, as if that was ever fair. Even the war in the New World, where he ripped your baby boy Canada from your absentminded arms and poked you out of the continent with the business end of a musket.

If undermining the anamorphic states of the Holy Roman Empire was a point of professional pride, grinding England into his own hypocritical dust has become a sort of personal crusade. Oh, you can play nice, especially when you are on the losing side, begging for your life, but the metal of your blade has been stained with his blood more times than any other. And you are gratified to know that the sentiment is shared. There is no more useless rivalry than one where the other side does not acknowledge your threat, after all.

These days, however, we are all too civilized for such things as wars over royal bloodlines. You and England are relegated to sniping at each other’s throats like unleashed toy dogs, fighting over a bit of kibble neither of you actually wants to eat. Actually, it’s a surprise to wake up and find that he is your closest friend and most trusted confidant. As in, when did that happen? And how?



america.

This boy has strange issues, which is to be expected, after all, since it was under England’s thumb he was raised. Your children, you are sure, are far better behaved, and have better taste to boot (you carefully ignore Vietnam).

Even so, one mustn’t argue with success. The boy has become bloated on his, and you see it as merely your responsibility to give him the occasional prick to deflate that ego a bit. But you are not delusional. This is not a blood feud as much as a cultural squabble. You are fond of the child, even though your people give his tourists a rather hard time and you tsk tsk at the messy state of his international politics.

It is far more fun to criticize than to offer serious suggestions.

You remember the Revolution. You were more surprised than anything. Here he was, a stripling boy with all of the righteous innocence England had been too principled to deprive him of, railing against the very guardian who had carefully shielded him from the world, who had spoiled the child, who realized too late just what monster he had borne of love.

And then you were able to swoop in, a dashing prince only a year before the enemy, to woo the young nation until he laid his innocence before your feet. And only then did you, and those delightfully rough Hessians, teach him everything.

Unfortunately, you fell into the same trap as England, fooled by those innocent baby blues. Not only were you unable to enfold the boy into your greedy and resource-needy country after the war, the young America booted you from his borders with little more than a thank you ma’am.

Worse, a strange, skittering fervor had infected you after contact, the contagion known as revolution. And those were the beginning of the bloody times.




canada.

The lad is so quiet and principled. Unlike his loudmouthed sibling down south. He treasures your tongue in his own, barbaric way, and you think that you should give him a little approval now and again, if only you could manage to remember who he was half the time.



china.

It is not for lack of trying, for you were among the first to send missionaries to his heathen lands, the first to recognize his new republic, birthed bloody from civil strife. And yet the lovely Chine has never quite warmed up to you.

Perhaps because you had carnal relations with and then sold weapons to his lovely sister, Taipei. Perhaps because you are just a little too fond of the Dali Lama.

Either way, China is as cold as a dead fish to you beyond the exchange of trade.

La question ne se pose pas, but here is the one who got away, you think, which is a pity, for the world murmurs as the world turns that this man is quietly hoarding power, like a smoldering gold dragon slowly digging his claws through the flaking veneer of international politics. Perhaps you should feel threatened, but largely, your reaction has been one of amusement. First, because any opportunity to see the eventual puncture of America’s bloated enterprise is worth bleeding a bit of your own worth for (hey, you may be fond of the boy, but you still remember his cold eyes as he turned away from the bloody revolution which tore your country apart).

And second, because you are so, so tired.

Sometimes you think of how it would feel to fade into nothing, your borders dissolved, your culture unpracticed, your language forgotten. You’ve seen it happen to Prussia, and after the shock and horror had left his eyes, a strange sort of peace flickered there, the sort of peace that is hard-won and so rare after centuries of intrigue, betrayal and bloodshed. Trivial games, as you think of them, an eternal shuffling of the chess board.

In China’s eyes, you see a hunger you have not felt for centuries, and now you are wise enough to pity it.

For even if the borders and laws of your country are shaken apart, if your land is burned and pitted with shrapnel, your people renamed and lost, if but a single roll of bread is baked with a whipped-egg glaze, a single medallion of Joan de Arc swings from somebody’s neck, a single child hums Frère Jacques, then you will know that you have been remembered.

As France. France the beautiful.


Date: 2012-06-21 02:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrelsncrates.livejournal.com
I haven't seen a character study in a long time and this was well-written as well!

Nicely done.

Date: 2012-06-21 02:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barrelsncrates.livejournal.com
I do wonder though, why Russia isn't included as well?

Date: 2012-06-25 10:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] silverfoxflower.livejournal.com
I'm glad you liked it :) I'm sorry I wasn't able to include Russia, I'm not very good with his character.

op

Date: 2012-06-22 04:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] daniela filipa (from livejournal.com)
this is lovely, just missing a big character that had lot's of interaction with france, Russia.. is fundamental..
but this is beautiful~~

Re: op

Date: 2012-06-26 12:56 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] silverfoxflower.livejournal.com
Thank you! I definitely considered including Russia, but unfortunately I can't write his character well.

Date: 2012-10-31 11:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] inochichi.livejournal.com
( I just read my comment again and if you're French too then I'll look stupid BUT WELL I'M USED TO THAT)

I haven't read a Hetalia fanfic in years, and suddenly at work I decided to randomly check LiveJournal, and I came across this. Of course I felt attracted to it because of, well, being French and stuff. I think we're known overseas for being all arrogant etc ! Let's stick to that pattern and happily read something that says our country is beautiful !

Ahem 8D.

This is adorable, and very well written. I like the fact that it's not too long but still very powerful. The stereotypes are the kind of stereotypes I like, they make the Hetalia characters loveable and you portrayed them very well ! :3
Nice job, thanks for sharing !!

(Just a little thing ; Versallies is written Versailles =) And if you want Joan de Arc to be written in French - I suppose since it's in italics?- it would be Jeanne d'Arc ! But maybe you knew that and I'm being an arrogant French prick. :D And this fic was posted months ago so yeah I don't know what happened since)

Thanks again for helping me waste my working time in a very good way n_n.


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