#pyrrhocorax fic

[pyrrhocorax]

hi. if you want to experience a fever dream, please read the netherlands dunks on elon musk, a story i just wrote with help from @inkcoffinz (who drew this art) and some polish guy i just met.

[pyrrhocorax]

FUCK HELLO??!?!??!?!?

heres to a new beginning end midpoint! congrats to @pyrrhocorax on the release of Sendlingur og Sandloa's sequel, House Sorrows! :) got the privilege of reading the prologue early so i wanted to do a little thing in celebration! i. was gonna do something based on the video trailer (which pyrr kindly showed us ages ago) but i could only physically watch it once because it injured me grievously a little. my bad

[hws-lceland]

I was tagged by both @pyrrhocorax and @jamtland so ! May as well

Last song : Technically Barbie Girl by Aqua, it's my alarm sound. Last song I actively listened to was I thiink the FNAF song by The Living Tombstone ?

Current obsession : Stardew Valley, Trying to figure out how to draw again, and Doctor Who

Last film : I JUST finished rewatching the second live action Sonic Movie

Currently reading : I'm not currently in the middle of anything but I've got about 20 fics in various tabs open and am welcome to recommendations

Currently watching : Doctor Who

I am so shy about tagging people feel free to ignore these

@apersonwholikeslotus @aphpuffinchild @losnordiquitos @nordickies

[grimm-the-tiger]

Behold. I bring a list of my favorite complete multi-chapter Hetalia fics that I’ve read in the past *checks notes* four months on AO3. 

Weight of the World and The Shattered Soul by SolarisLupi 

Crossover with: RWBY 

Premise: America and Canada awaken in a dangerous, monster-filled world. With strange new powers and suspicious blanks in their memories, they seek answers while keeping out of the spotlight. They can’t afford to interfere. Not when they need to get home. So they don’t. That is, until a city called Vale is breached by the Grimm and America’s hero complex kicks in. The Shattered Soul is a direct sequel and there are at least three other fics in the series as well, all of which are complete. I haven’t read them yet, though, so I can’t recommend them. 

Rating: teen and up 

Hey, Homecoming Queen? by EmeraldSage 

Crossover with: none 

Premise: A smile is as much a suit of armour as any dress. And just as devastating. Or rather, when Alfred is neglected and forgotten by his family, he picks up the pieces and smiles. People often forget that when something breaks and comes back together, they’re never the same as they were before. But the process of breaking and reforging oneself is never easy. 

Rating: mature  Note: tw for suicidal thoughts. 

Little Talks by LilMissLibra 

Crossover with: none 

Premise:  Emil can see ghosts, which wouldn't be such a big deal if his new house wasn't haunted by one. 

Rating: teen and up 

Note: tw for past suicide and homophobia. Has a sequel titled Silhouettes. 

TELL ME A PIECE OF YOUR HISTORY by cultureandseptember 

Crossover with: none 

Premise: An account of the media reactions to the reveal of Nations (anthropomorphic national embodiments) with scholarly commentary. 

Rating: general audiences 

All He Ever Wanted by orphan_account 

Crossover with: none 

Premise: It was to be a simple job on Søren's part: help Berwald clean out the home of a reclusive scientist, and then return home to his mundane, ordinary life.That scenario became impossible when they came across someone who wasn't supposed to exist. 

Rating: teen and up 

Between Sea and Shore by SteadfastBrightStar 

Crossover with: none 

Premise: Two men, two centuries, one name. In 1830, Mathias is a jaded novelist battling a laudanum addiction, hiding a secret and trapped by hypocritical society. In 2013, he's a lonely children's author struggling to find his path in life. One will fall for a captivating creature of the sea, the other for a troubled man who seems not quite of this world, an illustrator whose pictures show far more than just the story. 

Rating: teen and up 

Note: tw for suicide and the death of a child 

Sendlingur og Sandlóa by pyrrhocorax 

Crossover with: none 

Premise: During an average summer in modern day, the Nordics meet up in the countryside for a long vacation to relax together. However, with hundreds of years of history between them, old memories get dredged up, both bad and good. Sendlingur og Sandlóa is a story about perspective, of loss and longing, the temperamental nature of both life and human relationships, and family. 

Rating: Teen and up 

Note: if I had to choose my absolute favorite Hetalia fic, this would be it. 

[pyrrhocorax]

(tw: bloody hands, brief shot of a baby snake) Trailer for my new fanfiction project. Click below the cut to read more (and link to first chapter).

Yet another summer is just around the corner in the years following the events of Sendlingur og Sandlóa. But this summer is anything but average – instead of their annual get-together, the Nordics are scattered across Europe. Iceland and Norway spend the entirety of the season together alone in the mountains where they learn to see each other in a new light. Finland and Sweden join Estonia and play a game of chess in the countryside under an old oak tree. Denmark, alone, drifts aimlessly, coming to terms with solitude in his own way. The past rears its ugly head. So does the future. A concert is held for the rest of the world to hear, unplugged, without headphones. Cracks start to form slowly, and then all at once. House Sorrows is a story about work, play, pleasure, growth, the trials of adulthood, the struggle of authenticity, the crisis of self-identity, the philosophy of nature, the bonds that connect us to our eventual fate, and an exploration of what being a nationperson even means on an anthropological, ecological, and biological level. If Sendlingur og Sandlóa was a sigh, House Sorrows is the subsequent breath. (Reading SOS is not a requirement to enjoy House Sorrows). (A Nordics+Estonia-centric canon-adjacent fic) FIRST CHAPTER HERE

[netherzon]

Nedcan: I think someone else may have gone over the details for this ship already, so I won’t get too into it here

Ameice: honestly, I read Sendlingur og Sendloa by pyrrhocorax(mniotilta) on ao3, which only has them interacting maybe 2 times, but the chemistry they had was *chef’s kiss*. It’s not my top rare pair, but it was my first

Gerame- THIS is my top pick. I have some personal reasons for liking this ship,  but more than that, these two are dorks and I think they work really well together. 

1. They’re both a little socially inept but in different ways that are complementary. They both kind of lack a brain-mouth filter, but Alfred’s comes off when he’s feeling relaxed. He can be incredibly charming when he wants, but as soon as he’s comfortable or passionate about something, he stops thinking before he opens his mouth. Ludwig is kind of the opposite imo; he’s acutely aware of social rules and expectations, but lacks an intuitive understanding of how to use them. The lack of clear rules puts him out of his comfort zone, so he’s easiest to get along with when he’s relaxed and not thinking about expectations. They’re also both hard to offend, so even when they slip up they can both appreciate the other being honest, rather than being hurt. Ludwig doesn’t have to wonder very often how Alfred is feeling, and Alfred can respect Ludwig’s directness. 

2. They both like engineering, cars, math, science, all that jazz (lot of the modern electro swing music comes from German artists actually). 

3. They have relationships with their older brothers that are in some ways very similar and in others complete opposites, which adds some interesting family dynamics, especially since Prussia helped America through his revolution before he even had Germany. I know some people like when Germany is HRE and then he gains all those memories back, but if you DONT do that, Ludwig is one of the few countries younger than Alfred, and he grew up even faster, surrounded by much older European countries. I imagine Germany doesn’t always quite fit in with his European counterparts, and I think that’s something Alfred can empathize with. 

4. They can both be misjudged too, where Germany isn’t as angry/mean/hard-assed as he might seem at first glance, and America isn’t as stupid or quite as selfish. Its pretty much the classic “optimistic extrovert and realistic introvert balance each other out” relationship.

Fanfics:

Acceleration Waltz by Twigo: love love love love love this. Human AU, 1950s America, Ludwig is a German immigrant and Alfred is kind of a racist asshole at first, but they slowly build a friendship, and then a romantic relationship, dealing with themes of xenophobia, homophobia, grief, PTSD, toxic masculinity. It might be heavy for some people but its A+++

Die Buchhandlung by sadlygrove: also Human AU, Alfred is an American military officer in post-WW2 Germany, Ludwig is a bookmaker, drama ensues, A+

This Goddamn Stupid War by TianShan: this one is dark and NSFW, but very well written, so I do recommend it

Operation Little Vittles by TianShan: still NSFW but less dark, sort of a sequel to This Goddamn Stupid War but its not necessary to read that one to understand this one, I prefer this story between the two anyway, its one of my all time favorites

The Marshall Plan by realmzenith: unfinished (sadly), but there are still 10 chapters and it was one of the first fics for gerame that I ever read, it really helped solidify my love for this pair

Tempest by snarechan: Ill be honest its been awhile since I’ve read this one, if I remember correctly, Germany and America are WW1 fighter pilots, they’re involved in a crash together but survive cause they’re nations and have to wait with each other until somebody comes to rescue them

The Kiss Rule by MeinNameIstJette: also seems unfinished, but its good regardless, more historical gerame, the first chapter is another interpretation of operation Little Vittles that I like

Take Care by Brimstone Boy: this one focuses on the San Valentino episode where Germany was publicly rejected and the aftermath of that, Germany’s reaction, America helping him snap out of it, their relationship develops from there

tantalizing by Anonymous: shameless smut, multiple pairings, the gerame hasn’t been added yet but the very next update should have it so fingers crossed

A Final Lie by realmzenith: human AU, Alfred is royalty and Ludwig is a spy for a revolutionary group, forbidden love stuff

My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys by RebelxMusic: spicy but not explicit, gerame go to a country bar and test the mechanical bull

Miscellaneous SFW oneshots:

Guten Morgen by sadlygrove

Homework by realmzenith

Plans by orphan account

echoes of the aftermath by goldtracing

The Fourth of July by realmzenith

by OccupationLove

Lost and Found by pajamabees: there are mentions of sex in this one but nothing explicit

What Would I Buy If... by OccupationLove: human AU, actually centers more on Prussia and England, the gerame is more hinted at buts its still cute

The Cubicle Next Door by OccupationLove

He Woke Up Like This by pajamabees

Scales by OccupationLove

Hot off the Press by realmzenith

Surprises by OccupationLove

Revelations by orphan account: german bro centric

City of Love by pajamabees

Bluegrass Ambassadors by Gramarye: not gerame per se, more Germany & Canada & America buddy bonding, but its sweet so you should go read it

You Just Be You, Baby by pajamabees: this doesn’t have explicit sex but it gets spicy at the end

Apfelkuchen or Apple Pie by me, Germany and America make pie together

Miscellaneous NSFW oneshots:

I Want To See Everything by draw_a_circle_thats_the_spinning_compass

Red Hot Blue Jeans by pajamabees

Hey Hetalia fans! Yes you!

Reblog with the rarepair you ship, and explain the dynamics or why you like it. I want to get to know some of the other rarepairs.

If you have any content for that rarepair you want others to see (whether you made it or not). I'll go read or look at the fanart and reblog it with my thoughts on it.

I know rarepairs so often get overlooked, and we all want a chance to gush over our ships, so this is your chance!

Edit: You can now see my responses under the tag:

#Aiyana Rare Pair Talks

[pyrrhocorax]

My pinch hit for @hws-anthology!

Five short stories set in different time periods about the Nordic nations, their problems, and their triumphs, as loosely seen through the eyes of an immortal Mr. Puffin. Platonic EstFin and implied DenNor (during a post-breakup).

[pyrrhocorax]

You've done a lot of research into giving Denmark, Norway and Iceland meaningful and culturally realistic names in your fics, would you be interested in doing the same for Sweden and Finland too? I understand that they're side characters and not the characters you're interested in exploring, but the names Himaruya gave them are actually extremely ridiculous (Sweden more so than Finland) and take away from the realism of the setting. If you're planning to write a sequel, it would be really great to get rid of the Himaruya names for good.

Asking this because your fic "Sendlingur og Sandlóa" was recommended to me by two separate users, plus many more who posted about it positively. I'm currently finishing another book so I've only read the first chapter so far but Sweden having the silly name "Berwald" while DenNorIce had thoughtful names was sad to see (I am the #1 hater of "Berwald")

for some reason it will NOT allow me to upload a lot of text after i accidentally deleted shit so here are images of what i am saying instead in dire hopes it will not be stupid:

[pyrrhocorax]

btw. i am working on something. :)

[lunartexan]

Keeping this going from @maplequeen94 , an old WIP I think I might try to get back into sometime, inspired by this lovely artwork by @kyuhu (who yall should totally check out btw)

rules: share a sentence or two (or paragraph uhhh...) from a wip - recent or old - that you are proud of and tag 5 people to continue. anyone who wishes to join, feel free as well.

As suggested above this is an old unfinished start of a fic I wanted to (and ngl might try to) make based off Kyuhu's amazing art and some worldbuilding and dynamic ideas about Bela and Pru here

And with that all said, onto the fic!

Outskirts of Philadelphia, Early 19XX…

"I think he was going down to Baltimore" Gilbert leaned over the map, the flame of the kerosene lamp giving his usual pale face some color "Where else could he be going?".  New York City perhaps? Baltimore makes no sense, it's too far and it'd be way too unfamiliar for him" Natalya ran her finger across the map's road and city lines to trace out what she meant. He let a vaguely pig like snort, "Nat we just were in New York, why the hell would he go back?" "Well, do you have any better ideas? Baltimore is still a stupid thought" she bit back swiftly before a long silence grew between them. He let a out a long exasperated sigh to break the silence, "Look lets just go get food or something alright? We've been at this for like a damn hour and gotten nowhere". She looked at him with her usual icy stare before she let out a sigh of her own, agreeing with him on just needing some kerosene free air.

"Haven't you already told this story before?" Gilbert butted in as he picked at the last of his cheap steak and potatoes, only to earn a swift "No I have not so shut it" in return from Natalya. "Anyways, I had just gotten off Ellis Island with Ivan and Ekaterina and we were walking to our brand new cheapest apartment through some alleys and-" she paused to eat some of the last of her potato soup "-this huge man comes up to us with a knife and tells us-" in a weird mix of her slavic accent trying to imitate an American one "-“this is a stick up, give me your money”, so what do we do? My sister tells him to fuck off while I just tackle him, we get into a fight but sister and brother soon join and we manage to pin him down, take his knife, and beat his ass, all for just a dew small slashes on my end!" She ends off with a proud laugh, paying no mind to the part where she did in fact get slashed open on a few parts.  Gilbert in his part couldn't help but agree with her, giving a chuckle and proud smile of his own, equally paying no mind to her having her blood unwillingly drawn. "I'm assuming you took the shit's knife as well? With how many of them you have" He half asked half teased towards her, having seen how crazy she could get over knives.  

And as for who I shall tag, @spinyfruit , @tema-makes-art-sometimes , @yaqamole , @weirdhasanxiety , @pyrrhocorax

Got tagged by @puritanphobic , Thanks for the tag! 💕

rules: share a sentence or two (or paragraph uhhh...) from a wip - recent or old - that you are proud of and tag 5 people to continue. anyone who wishes to join, feel free as well.

(Haha, well the current WIP I'm working on is a secret so I'll share a snippet from one of my CanUkr works I never got to post in October)

Matthew gave Katya a sympathetic smile, gently patting the top of her head before returning his attention to his locker. He fiddled briefly with the lock before a quiet click allowed him access to his belongings; pulling out all his toiletries before closing it back up. Color returned to Katya’s cheeks as she watched Matthew pulled his hockey jersey off. She hoped it wasn’t so obvious just how hard she was ogling his glistening torso, only to have those hopes immediately squashed as Matthew gave her a delighted smirk. “Enjoying the show?” He teased, chuckling as he watched her cheeks burn brighter. 

I Tag: @lunartexan @9pilkytf @headingalaxys-spicy @koolkat9

[pyrrhocorax]

4 10 20 35 !

OKAY I know you asked this a bit ago sorry i got busy!!! work!!! turtle took a tiny chunk out of my finger!! the usual! y'know What's a headcanon you need to work out? i am blanking real hard with this but i Guess what i consider to be estonia's true name b/c von bock is von bullshit has been a constant Thought of mine for a long time. sme goes for a lot of nations that have bad canon names or no canon names like what the FUCK would i name them. it takes so much effort for me to decide. How long have you been in the fandom? What's your lore? i've been around a while! i can't date exactly when i started but it was at least sometime in 2008. i Think it was in the late fall of 2007, i've been trying to do the backwards math and i think this makes sense timeline wise, but my memory isn't exactly great. i figured out yesterday i am Pretty sure i was into hetalia before den/nor/ice were released?? which is. wild to me. anyway the story is that i occasionally saw hetalia fanart in passing and i was like. what the fuck is this but i don't care enough to investigate. and then i watched darker than black and was like wow i gotta tell my (now ex-)friend about this new cool anime darker then black b/c i am enjoying it a lot and i think she would too! and then my friend was like "i am going to totally ignore you. watch this thing called hetalia instead. you like other countries and history and languages and shit you should like this it's so funny" and i watched it and i didn't find it as funny as she claimed but i thought the concept itself was utterly Fascinating and i became Obsessed. my initial favs were japan/prussia/estonia initially, all for radically different reasons. i can elaborate on that if prompted it's just more text than i care to put here. then the den/nor/ice dropped and we had some comics with the nordic 5 and i was like oH FUCK these character dynamics between them are So Fun!!! and i have been in Hell every since. this is my third time getting back into hetalia after swearing it off for good and uhhh i think i have just been in denial this entire time that i am stuck here forever. Favorite Hetalia relationship dynamic? Any combination of the Anko Trio without question. they're such an interesting little complicated group. Post a Hetalia sketch or draft you want an excuse to share i am not very good at drawing and draw from the perspective of a more refined 8 year old child or something (positive). but i also don't have anything currently drafted writing wise that feels complete enough either so i am gonna share a dumb doodle i did and also share some upcoming things i plan on doing.

one of the chapters of the SOS sequel is going to be called "The Joy Machine" and i am. very excited about that.

also have a neat NorAus idea i am obsessed with and will probably write soon-ish. once i sleep and think a bunch

[pyrrhocorax]

(Silence anon) thank you! Your fic was how I first discovered radiohead :] I'm glad to see you still write and that it seems like you're doing better.

yeah no prob!! radiohead is really good so i'm glad you enjoy them. i also suggest checking out this cover by punch brothers of the song that's in the soundtrack for it. they have a studio recording of it but i somehow?? cannot find it. they've also done some cool covers of some other radiohead songs too such as this one (haunting!!!) and this one. i haven't listened to straight radiohead in a while but when i saw packt like sardines in a crushd tin box while gathering the songs, i was like oh fuccck yeah i forgot how much i loved this song/radiohead. so thank you for giving something i can listen to while i work tomorrow. i am def doing better than i was back then (don't think anything will be worse than that period of my life). that being said i've gone through a lot of not great things + last 5-6 years have been Extremely stressful for me in ways i cannot even begin to explain and it is only been in the past few months i've really started to recover and get better. i am doing probably the best ever i have ever been in my life right now! i am very tired but i finally have time to self-reflect and space to myself for the first time in a really long time and it's nice to, forgive the pun, have nothing but silence. ✌️

[aphpuffinchild]

since it's out i can finally post my piece for @hws-anthology as well as the timelapse for it. as is arguably all my hetalia work, it's a love letter to my friend @pyrrhocorax 's fic Sendlingur og Sandlóa - i'll ramble a bit about how much it means to me, as well as the symbolism i wormed into this piece below the read more :)

i originally had two pages planned for this piece, potentially more - the fic is a good 74k words long and certainly not light on scenes i could and wanted to pull from, but various things led into other various things and one page was all i could manage, so i tried to cram in what i could, so here's that (in a rough, somewhat arbitrary order of focal points)

the opening chapter! the car is a framing device for the piece as much as it is for the journey the characters will take following that first chapter, so i wanted to use the car window/shapes as a literal framing device in my drawing

joi, shaky at best in his sense of self, sees no reflection in the window, instead there's a silhouetted raven to signify the search he must go on to find it

while not perfectly transcribed by virtue of wonky (plus an extra) line(s), the notes coming from joi's headphones are the opening to the song sendlingur og sandlóa, the fic's namesake, which a loved one kindly transposed by ear for me for the purpose of this piece

in a similar vein, the stickers on joi's suitcase are of a purple sandpiper and a ringed plover, the birds after which the song is named - here they are as transparents and in their original colours

i wanted to create a sliiight impression that joi is the one knocking over the chessboard, representing his repeated rejections of it (both physically, and the things it represents)

the chess pieces were also chosen specifically! originally i was going to use a black rook and a white pawn to match chapter 41, but for the sake of having alternating colours and the rest of my metaphors working (iirc) i swapped those colours around. that, and i wanted to match chapter 13's white king and black pawn - the black pawn stuck, the white king was colour swapped for colour cohesion reasons like the other's. (visual contrast was important to me, but the white queen blending slightly into the sky was okay for symbolism reasons) (there was also black king, white rook from chapter 3, so it all worked out anyway - there's a lot of chess in this story and i only had space for so many pieces and colours, basically)

speaking of which, the black pawn is for joi (chapter 13), the white queen is for halle (someone who, from joi's perspective, can go anywhere, vs joi's pawn, someone to be used -> see chapter 35 and perspective).

the king piece is falling (but hasn't quite fallen) between halle and henrik (chapter 3, 7, 13, though i most clearly thought of 19)

the person in the top right corner is eduard! i desperately wanted to include him because i think he's deserved it, and i considered a lot of ways of working him in, but i think an ambiguous silhouette that isn't Quite part of the main picture works better narratively

note also that he's separated from the other's through a red curtain, to represent the iron curtain (naturally) i wanted it to match ber + tino's part in some way, to sorta emphasise their similar foundations despite being split apart across places

the flowers at eduard's window are placed and chosen purposefully as well! orange/red zinnia's outside (for familial ties, steadfastness, friendship and remembrance) for what eduard puts out in to the world, then lily-of-the-valley for tino and cornflower for him inside to show what he wants to hold close :)

halle and joi are the only characters with their eyes open - halle looks towards the viewer/author/reader/joi, while joi looks away all together. if you've read the fic (which i assume you have because i can't imagine this is interested to read otherwise) you probably don't need me to explain why that reflects their roles in the story

similarly, every character apart from the brothers is turned towards another in some way (eduard does not count when his flowers do, and his role in the story is based around that disconnect partially anyway) tino towards ber and eduard (and hana, i guess), ber towards tino, henrik to halle, halle to henrik (though he looks away - his values are elsewhere even when they are together). joi, at best, looks at his own reflection in the window

the colour scheme, while arbitrarily picked from gradient maps based on what i felt "fit" has been approved by the author as being very "SoS core"

finally, the poem on the note, chapter 46

all that being said, i can and will now talk about my personal relationship with SoS, so unless that interests you i imagine the post is done now! thank you for reading :)

the first comment i posted on SoS is dated 2nd November 2016 - logging into my old account i can see i bookmarked it on the 31st August that same year, so i can safely assume i first read or at least found it then. a month after my first comment, i posted another on a different account, pouring a few bits of my heart out and the author responded! we went back and forth a bit and eventually talked (i think) via tumblr for a little, but the majority of our conversations were via skype for whatever reason (we didn't call, just texted). it was a lot of me looking for writing advice, insight to their work/process/skill, talking about The Brothers and talking about psychology/the brain on a general and personal level. i think if i read our conversations back now i'd cringe, given that i was an awkward, fumbling 16 year old, but i dont think anything else wouldve been fitting given the subject matter. eventually our conversations fizzled out and we stopped talking for years, but i'd go back to SoS routinely and cry.

in may of 2021, i posted another comment during what in hindsight was definitely another relatively minor mental health episode - i think it was half trying to emphasise how important the work was to me on the off chance pyrr saw it, and half a bid for connection since i had no idea if they even remembered us talking. i assumed nothing would come of it, and for about a year that was true - until pyrr responded after all in february of 2022 - i'm happy to say we've been talking consistently on discord since then. i feel a little weird speaking too intimately about our friendship as it is now since it's not just my story to tell (though pyrr, if you're reading this) (i'm sure you are at some point) (you're welcome to talk about it however, i just didn't want to without consulting you) but i can say with some certainty that it's at least a little bit my fault that we have a sequel now - cementing my place as official number #1 fan and validating the me from almost 8 years ago in a way i don't think either of us processes well.

it's here that i feel the need to talk about my other dear friend, @hws-lceland , who i'm grateful to have met through the zine's discord server. i'm sure they're reading this too, and a lot of what our relationship means to me is stuff that's probably a bit too vulnerable for either of us to speak publicly, but i *can* say that i love them very much, and i'm really grateful to have someone else to understand, and that he read SoS for me. i thought he needed it, and i hope i was right

sendlingur is...endlessly important to me. i'm aiming to not write an essay here (a goal i think i've already sorta shot in the foot) but i think it's important for me to talk about some of this a little loudly, all the same. my writing has changed because of the series - remeeting with pyrr and showing them some of my more recent work was interesting since it was apparent even to them the influences i'd taken (to be fair, in one section i explicitly asked and did borrow a format of theirs, but this goes beyond that). when i was 16 i asked my mum to read the fic in a desperate bid to be understood. i've cried reading the fic many, many times. i've signed off letters and poems with my switched around version of i'm sorry / thank you / i love you (i swap the first two around) many, many, many times, including in a close friend's wedding gift. SoS has very sincerely changed my definition of love. the name halle is a part of my abstract mindscape. id already considered changing my name to johannes anyway and this fic certainly didnt help. i've gained a friendship of 7 and a half years through it. i've gained another newer one now, too. i am not well. i wasn't well then, reading it, and it hasn't fixed me (i am worse, now, arguably), but it healed something, or at least made me feel understood. i could go on, and maybe sometime i will (there were so many things i wanted to include in my piece and pay homage to!), but for now i will thank anyone who took the time to read all this (again), and say that i look forward to experiencing the sequel

as always, i'm sorry, thank you, i love you

[hws-lceland]

3, 8, 19, 38, 47 swedmark

3) Who are your favorite Hetalia writers? Why?

I. Do not read a lot of fics. So I have a very limited pool to choose from but here is a few!

Pyrrhocorax I really love their characterization they write the Nordics SO well and also their writing style is very friendly to my ADHD brain and very intriguing! They can be both heart wrenching but also ridiculous and really funny. I need to read more of their fics still

Glassamilk (ff.net was not working for me so??) Predictable answer from me and I've only read 4 of their fics because that's all I could find, but I really like their characterization. I wish more of their fics outside of Gutters were more easily accessible ):

Also @spacerace-blues <3 but the fucker hasn't posted anything publicly /lh

(when I say I've read like. Barely any fics I really mean it, but I plan to start reading more and will definitely come back to questions this when I do )

8.) Who doesn't fold their socks?

Austria, Iceland, America

38.) Who needs a phat joint?

Litterally every character I think

47.) [Insert character]'s guilty pleasure?

I assume you mean Sweden and Denmark in which case I think both of them like watching shitty American movies together

[pyrrhocorax]

The Empty World

They both have these dreams about snowfall, of walls in all directions, of empty whiteness as far as the eye can see. I wrote something! I actually had time! Whoo!!!

Characters: Norway, Russia Warnings: general surrealism, blood AO3 version

Halvard is my name for Norway. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- They both have these dreams about snowfall, of walls in all directions, of empty whiteness as far as the eye can see. In these dreams the horizon is drawn hastily, with a pencil, a gray outline that wavers with a shaky hand, grainy and indistinct, but sharp, a failed attempt at drawing a straight line. It feels as if here, you can physically see the tilted axis of the earth, the lopsidedness of the planet. They describe it the same way, eerily the same way, of how it doesn't feel clean here, but textured, that there is nothing to this featureless place other than the line far, far in the distance, and no matter how far they wander there’s nothing tangible, no variation.                  “Maybe I only thought it was snow because that is what I assumed it to be,” Halvard muses. “That I didn’t have the words to describe what I felt, what I saw, because I could only apply the sensations of my waking life to this place that wasn’t bound by those same rules. We can only describe our dreams to others in post-waking, draining and filtering those wordless experiences into associations. It was like this, it reminded me of this, but it wasn’t this. The world was white and empty, and the only whiteness I know is winter, the only emptiness I know is absence, and the dividing line serves a function: to let myself know that I am grounded, that there is some forced perspective that I must understand this place through.”                  “And what do you think that was” Ivan asks, “the function of that divide?”                  Halvard doesn’t know. He’s all theory with no answers.    

------------------ Throughout the summer this is all Ivan dreams about, or at least all that he remembers that he dreams about. Until the leaves start turning color in the real world the empty world is all that exists in his unconsciousness and only after he sweeps the leaves off his porch is he placed in other dreams, dreams that explore other topics, other colors, of fantasies and nightmares, and sometimes, Halvard is in those dreams, only a few of them, but it always gives him pause when he wakes.      ------------------

 Halvard dreams of the empty world in the winter, once the trees are barren until the day they bloom, and he’s not sure what to make of it. Sometimes he wakes up and feels anxious about it but he doesn’t understand why. He keeps thinking about it even when he’s wide awake.     

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 “You don’t bleed in the empty world,” Ivan tells him, recalling a dream where he tried, digging his nails into his arm and waiting for color to appear, but there were no wounds upon his arm, no pain was felt, and that is when he realized that he himself wasn’t colored in the same way the world was, just faded charcoal drawn lines that smudged together. He tells Halvard this because he’s curious if their dreams follow the same rules. Halvard doesn’t know, he’s never tried, and when the first frost comes that winter and the dream rises again he tries to tear open his skin. There’s nothing, like Ivan said, and it leaves him perplexed, a little confused.                  It continues for years.

------------------ He coughs up blood and it falls out from between the fingers that cover his face and when it hits the floor of the empty world it leaks in harsh angles, each drop disobeys the laws of logic and streaks into the distance, each sharp vector fading from sight like painted borders on distant highways. Behind him, they go, weaving between his legs like a casting shadow, but when he wipes his mouth clean and turns around he is in the wrong light, his blood has reached the borderline of the world and rising out of the red river is an equally red half-mooned sun, a semicircle that shimmers and wavers like a candle weak-willed in the wind, like the sky, like the last moments of the sun before the earth swallows it whole. There are only ever two things: canvas, and the life spilled upon it. Every night Halvard finds a bit more color in his lungs and the red lines grow wider and wider until there’s nothing left.

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 And in another empty world soon grows flowers, Ivan notices the horizon sags, it hangs with sharp underscores leaving not only color but impressions of physical violence, how stabbing a stack of paper with an inked pen still leaves indents three stories down, untouched, unreached, but impacted. And with every morning he awakes to the memory of more boldness, more growth, so quickly from nothing, and soon he cannot begin to count the fields of sunflowers that he finds himself drowning in when he awakes in these dreams. It is peaceful here, such slow progressions, there is no sky and he cannot feel the wind but the flowers move, turning the heads in the direction of a non-existing sun in the face of an empty sky, as if time moves on even when there is absence.                  Sometimes, when he enters his dreams and wakes up from consciousness, he swears that every flowered head is staring straight at him, as if he is the lightbearer, but then he blinks his eyes and he is no longer the center of the world.                  He catches glimpses of Halvard in the sea of sunflowers, an aberration in the field of yellow and brown, and when Halvard turns around he seems surprised, wide-eyed, but not helpless, and then he is gone.

[pyrrhocorax]

For the @aph-fanfic-network prompt event, with the prompt being "rivals who are secretly banging." Genre: mostly humor with a little drama Word Count: 7797