❝i don't know how much i can keep letting you unravel me❞

[moirae]

Title: A Far Better Thing
Series: Axis Powers Hetalia
Words: 3,000~
Characters: England (Arthur) ; Belgium (Margaret) ; France (Francis) ; Holland (Willem) ; (England/Belgium/France)
Rating: Pg-13
Warnings: language ; mentions of violence.
Summary: Written for qualapec for the holidays, and adapted for hetalia_contest's week 025 prompt, literature! Based on the story of

Comments

[musubi7]

Duuuuuuuuude, I gotta admit.

Reading Tale of Two Cities in 10th grade ruined Dickens for me. I can't stand the guy's style, nor could I stand the plot or the characters. Whatever-the-chick's-name was probably the worst female character ever written, outside of, oh, hell Bella Swann. Though I will admit, Sydney Carton is a badass, even if he died for a vapid girl. I still have nightmares about that book and the movie we saw in class, which made it even worse.

Needless to say, I was a bit wary when I clicked your link.

But I was pleasantly and brilliantly surprised. ^_^

You've just put life into a book I utterly despise. Maybe it's the modern writing. Maybe you're not getting paid by word to write this. Maybe it's not a newspaper series. Or maybe you're just that damned fine of a writer, but I thoroughly enjoyed this piece.

I actually felt sympathy for Francis/France. I felt the love England has for Belgium and the scene where she whispers France's names is brilliant and heart wrenching. England's reaction is perfect. And I love his drunkenness. And maybe it's the Alfred fangirl in me, but I was expecting a little drunken rant about America ruining everything for Europe overseas (a cry which would be repeated over the centuries). Was it not the success of the American Revolution which gave the spark which ignited the French clusterfuck Revolution?

Oh, and a side note of concriting, there was one paragraph that would have read better if it was shifted around...lemme find it...ah yes, here it is. For pacing's sake, I would have switched around this paragraph:

That they didn’t want you? What would happen to you, then?”

“I suppose I’d be obsolete,” Arthur murmured thoughtfully. His brain couldn’t process so much information so quickly, especially not after the amount he’d drunken. He massaged his temples and said, “I suppose I’d just fade away. Like Greece, like Rome. A new civilization would be born from whatever remained.”

I would have made the sentence starting with "His brain couldn't..." the first sentence. It's a pretty serious question Belgium asks and--this is strictly pacing wise--for him to follow up with an answer immediately seems out of place. Like a CD jarring or jacked up VHS jumping over a scene. Neh, just a concrit. Anyway--

In real life history, I know nothing about Belgium and its relations to France and England, but can I say I love her dynamic yay for hetero couples in Hetalia? And yay for Holland with his spiky hair. XD

Oh my, what a long comment.

[moirae]

Thanks for you input! Your con crits are always incredibly valid and helpful, so thank you for supplying them!

When I learn TotC in school we approached it from several different vantage points, with all the round and flat characters bit, so even though I didn't like Lucy I sort of got the whole plot-driven symbol bit. (Though I won't pretend it wasn't fun to inject some personality into her side of the story through Belgium.)

Nearly all my favorite couples are het. Belgium has had a lot of close relations with France and England over the years, but I sort of fudged the history to make it work in this. >.>

[musubi7]

You're welcome! ^_^

I understand the symbolism behind TOTC, but I still couldn't bring myself to enjoy that book. :P

madness!

When don't we fudge history for the sake of Hetalia cannon? pfffft