Why Francis is That Way: A series of headcanoned events that led to the ancient man we have now long post warning
Baby’s First Abandonment: When Fran was VERY little, physically 6 or so (idk 50 years old?? I don’t know nation ages) his mother Gual was his main caretaker. They lived in a small village with nomadic people by a river, very nice! Very aesthetic. Gual was close friends with many villagers so naturally Francis became close with them too, leading to them becoming his second family of sorts. One night Gual came back after bei Nd gone for a few days, Fran didn’t think much of it, and insisted he stay inside for the night with her. She made a special dinner and cuddled him all night and sang him to sleep and in the morning, she was gone. Francis, again, didn’t mind cause his mom left frequently for hunts so he went about his week. After a month he became worried and after six, he started flipping out. Tantrums and screaming and the villagers all had a felling his mom was dead so the woman with the most kids took him in. This was Francis’ first abandonment and this is what began his somewhat clingy nature. (He now knows that when his mother left, she went to fight Rome...and lost)
The First Heartbreak of Many: A long time later, I don’t know how many years, Francis met Arthur. Fran traveled with a new nomadic tribe now and went across the channel with them for the first time and found that lil stinker. Arthur and his brothers lived close to the water too so it was easy to find them! As years and years went on, Arthur and the other kirklands were Francis’s only friends! When the Auld Alliance was formed, he and Alastair were ‘married’ for awhile, which Francis very much enjoyed. He never had a lover before! He was still young for a nation, so was Ali so this was a first for them both. In his naivety, Fran believed that he and Ali would be together forever! But within a decade or so, Ali became more distant. Eventually he sat Francis down and told him “I love ya, I really do, but...Not as a wife. You’re a boy...And...I don’t like boys in a ‘wife’ way” of course Ali was very nice about it!! He was nothing but nice to Francis but that still broke his lil heart and the next day he insisted on going to live back home with his people to sulk. Sulk was probably the wrong word but what he did was lay in his hut for days on end, not leaving and crying a lot. He really thought he’d have someone to love forever and for the first time, he was broken up with
Too Young: As he grew up into a cocky teenager, he made many more nation friends. He called Antonio ‘cousin’ in an endearing way and spent a lot of time with him! He fought with Arthur a lot because now that little kid was growing physically too and they could fight their frustrations out like Real Men (they were not). By now, Francis had been with many women and a handful of men so he had Experience in relationships now. He’d talked to Antonio about a certain someone...Someone who...Has been trading around Italy...Sadik. It took awhile after first hearing about him to see him and oh lord, Francis fell for him on the spot! He was all he talked about with Toni and Artie for awhile!! His friends weren’t very supportive “Listen, idiot, he’s far older than you are it just wouldn’t work out!” “Franny, he’s so cruel, I’ve seen some of the things he’s done” but we know our boy is not one to listen to other. So of course, he perused Sadik and got exactly what he wanted. Both parties did, actually. Francis didn’t care about Sadik’s religion and Sadik felt the same way, they were attracted to eachother. Sadik liked Fran for his feminine features and his strength and Francis was extremely attracted to Sadik in almost all aspects of who he was. This ‘relationship’, if you could even call it that, was based on lust and not love so it didn’t last more than three years. It ended in an explosive fight with Francis saying Sadik was too self centered and Sadik calling him too young and stupid. Not exactly the way you should end a relationship. Both were upset at the split and went their separate ways. What did Francis learn from this experience? He learned not to rely on looks and that older men were a pain in the ass....But that didn’t stop him from persuing him again in the 1900s and I oop-
Humans Cant Provide What Nations Need: We all know the story of Joan of Arc so I won’t waste time describing that. Francis and Joan were close and Francis felt a very intense love for her. So intense that he longed for her when she was away and felt her pain himself when she was hurt. Was this a complication of being a nation? Possibly. But he thought it was his heart belonging to her. After centuries of living THIS girl was it! This was his soulmate! This had to be her, the woman he would love forever! And then the English came. When she died Francis felt dead on the inside and sank into a deep deeeeeep depression. Arthur later came to see him and told him a few things “Listen...It wasn’t personal. I didn’t want to hurt you, you were never the target. But you can’t depend on humans the way you depended on her...They dont last long...And they don’t come back...” Francis learned to be more closed off towards humans. Developing connections with them in this way wasn’t just unhealthy...It was stupid too
The Child: Skipping history again here! So Francis raised Matthew and Arthur raised Alfred for the most part UNTIL the English government decided they wanted Arthur to have custody over Matthew. After a lot of back and forth, the French agreed to give Matthew over without Francis’s consent. Naturally, Francis was DEVASTATED!!! He was such a good father. Every night he sang Matthew to sleep, he made him his favorite cookies, he let him pick out clothes, he cut his hair, he kissed his cheeks and hugged him and loved him so much! And now that horrid englishman was taking his son away! He blamed Arthur even though it wasn’t his decision. Francis chose to deliver Matthew himself so they could spend some time together. Francis dropped him off and practically dragged Arthur away from the house to yell at him without the kids heading. He yelled and punched him in the shoulder and yelled some more, let all of his hurt out. And when he was done having his adult tantrum he felt...worse. They went inside and spent time together as a family and later apologized to his dearest friend with a kiss on the cheek and breakfast in bed the next morning. He learned to be more mature and handle his feelings in another way than yelling and to be the adult his kids need
The Light Switch: Between the world wars, Fran and Artie finally got together. During the second ww, Fran was taken by the Germans and kept as a prisioner. When he was finally retrieved and brought home two years later he was a big ol mess. Arthur stayed with him at his house. The lights all needed to stay on, no loud noises, the doors were locked and checked over and over and over. Francis would insist he was fine until he was blue in the face but at the end of the day, he really needed Arthur and was so thankful for him being there. At this time he really needed someone there and Art had a lot of shared trauma so they got even closer through that. Fran didn’t learn much from this but what he did was become more open with his closest, dearest friend and become his lover. They became eachother’s support through this time and grew a lot from that together :) now the lights can be off and they can sleep soundly if a door went unlocked somewhere but they both can’t stand those thunderstorms that shake the house. Those kinds of storms bring back horrible memories for them and that’s an excuse to just hold eachother closer
Conclusion: Fran has issues with seperation and rejection cause of all of this and even though hes hella old he still is naive despite his smarts and even though he knows it’s bad, he listens to his heart more than his head
Thank you for reading this far!!!!!
