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fumblingmusings · 2 years

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oh woah what's nyo ireland and nyo england's relationship like in the modern times? do they try to reach out to each other? and wow the mommy issues that nyo england's kids are gonna inherit

Ahsnfbf I didn't want to say because I've probably already blabbed about it too much at this point but yes absolutely mummy issues abound there. I guess it's up to the individual how far you take it, because it can get pretty dark if left unchecked.

My favourite dynamic in Hetalia is the push and pull for these guys who are nations vs who they are as people. You can't live as long as they do without forming opinions which run contradictory to what your government or even the majority of your people believe in. So for the kids they have that push and pull of 'that's my mum' versus 'my mum is the figurehead of something terrible' versus 'I'm part of something terrible'... so messy.

The kids mum as Alice or Annie or Elizabeth or whatever you wanna call her (I won't lie most Anglo-Saxon names are a mouthful for girls save Edith which yeah okay Ada, Eva, Eddie etc. are nice nicknames, or you go older for Morgan which is a more literal flipping of names pertaining to the Arthur myth... choices choices), is the kind of mum who's indulgent, clingy and melancholic. Which... is definitely not a great mother long term. England as the head of an Empire is a whole other kettle of fish. And yet the woman for the longest time refuses to disentangle them, or ask others to do the hard work for her.

Like... Oh! Not to equate them in any meaningful manner, but in Game of Thrones, the way that Cersei is with her youngest boy? That's how I picture England with the kids. Like this:

Is definitely something she would have done with Alfred at one point. The telling stories as much to comfort herself about what's going on as to reassure her kids whilst looking like she's three steps from stabbing someone's eye out in a fit of pent up anxiety. That story about a lioness and her cubs is definitely a fable she would have passed on whilst they were in the cradle and older, with all the excessive pet names and nervous petting of hair and skin, grasping and kneading them like a literal cat... It's suffocating, even for the kids who are more tactile.

She's good at playing the victim and playing up the fragility too (white womanhood and imperialism are such sinister methods of control), so when the time comes the kids, especially the boys, feel more than duty bound to protect her, not just as a Dominion to the mother country but also in instances like that's their mum piss off you angry German... man...creep... twice over. I don't think they ever quite let that personal relationship go, even when the political does not work that way anymore. She still knits them jumpers at Christmas is what I mean (not that Oz needs it but...) and goshdarn it her patterns really are good... But otherwise they're loyal to the woman, not the country. And yet that still has a somewhat insidious implication about it?

The boys have it worst. I think America and fem!England's relationship would be an absolute hot mess of indescribable intersecting definitions. England is no longer my mother country but she's still my mum actually no wait not like that either fuck her (not like that except...) and actually no wait maybe yes like that to the mum thing and how dare she look at other people the way she used to look at me look at me now look at me! Meanwhile Matthew's more an emotional crutch/white knight archetype - all the ways he was groomed to be heir once Alfred left whilst everyone including England and Canada knew that America was still going to inherit whatever earth was left when England finally fell - and Oz is the replacement baby who knew right from the word go he was a replacement and... Like it would be quite easy to just end tumbling in straight up oedipal complex nonsense with it for sure.

But going back to her and Ireland... I think it's better than it ever has been in some ways, and yet worse in others? I don't think any apologies have been given, and I'm not sure it's expected from the other, even if it is wanted. The kind of thing where if they're both in the room they'll both find the same joke funny, they'll catch each other's eye and the smiles will fade, both will burn red and return their attention elsewhere. Some topics are safe, emotional intimacy... not yet.

I think they both would be much clearer headed now about what happened to them, each other and what the other did and why, and that empathy would lead to understanding, but neither are at the point of talking about it. They don't really argue anymore, so now it's at the stage of 'well we're not fighting so we must be doing better right?' when really all that's happening is pushing the dirt under the carpet. Whereas before they were confronting it - terribly - now it's all avoidance. Again, I think one party (England...) is keener for that approach than the other.

#hetalia #op #q&a #hws england #hws ireland #fem!england #fem!ireland #headcanon #thank you for the ask!!!#arthur's parenting #fanfic ask

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