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Hello, So looking about and everything and I know everybody has a different depiction of what's Cannon and Whats not. Like Depending the person some say Wales is the Sister, others say its N.Ireland, or like me In my mind they are all Guys. But I think probably the most Historically accurate and spot headcannons for the British Isles come from this fanfiction,

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6889144/1/What-a-Brother-What-a-Bother

Kopanda's 'What a brother What a Bother.'

The writer is from Scotland and shows tad bit of Favouritism to him but equally through the stories explains mannerisms and creates behaviours and characters for the Other Brothers. She know her History and incorporates in with Everything. Scotland at times is mean but it he isn't a complete sadist ALL THE TIME LIKE MOST DEPICT HIM. Don't get me wrong they have their ups and Downs but in the end (though Wales is the Oldest) Scotland cares for his brothers despite past bad blood.]

The First story is really heart wrenching talking about a routine between the UK Brothers around the date April 16th. With if you know your Celtic History is the date of the Battle of Culloden which by Historian Standards is the Last Flourish of Scottish Highland Might and the 'Fall of Scotland to the English' from one history book I read. So the way that first chapter opens people again are gonna be like OOOO BAD SCOTLAND OC HE WOULDN'T DO THAT OOO EVIL. Just read on and the story Unfolds and its okay.

Probably my second Favourite OC written in this one has to be N.Ireland. He is completely what I'd Imagine him to be, Kind, a Tad Grumpy but for the most part semi Childish and fun loving. (I always imagine him and Ireland personally as like Fred and George types, until I read more into Irish History, but N.Irleland still retains that quarkyness)

But Reading a couple of these Stories (definately the First one, Story 5 is quite interesting and has to do with the Royal Wedding, Story is my Favourite, and the latest one added story 18, are the ones to read)

Just wondering what You think of these OCs.

Alright, while you suggested to me which stories I should keep an eye out for, I decided to read all the stories so that I would be able to give a full and unbiased critique of the brothers present in this fanfiction. I am going to warn you though: Brace yourself.

Why? Because I sadly didn't enjoy the fanfiction. I even found it painful to read at times. Certainly there were chapters I liked and there were stories that I liked... but the bad cancels out all the good things that I may have enjoyed. I really tried liking the fanfiction. I took breaks, reread some of the chapters... but I found myself all too often groaning, getting headaches and getting exasperated with what I was reading. So my critique is not going to be nice. I'll try to be unbiased and fair but I can't promise being gentle. I had many problems with the story and I am not going to shy from writing down my honest opinions. It is a long story so a long critique... you'll find everything beneath this. I am sorry if I'll come across too coarse... but some aspects of the story really bothered me.

The first thing I should critique is the depiction of the Battle of Culloden in the first story. I did study Celtic Civilisation in university and we discussed the Battle of Culloden and the after-effects of it a few weeks back. The lecturer who presented the whole subject to us is Highlander himself. He says that depictions of the Battle of Culloden vary but he said that the battle was more political than national. It wasn't Scottish vs. English. It was Jacobites vs Hanoverians and it is really unlucky that most Highlander clans were Jacobites because it means they got the worst hit when they were defeated. And it is a bit incorrect to say Scottish culture was oppressed when a lot of the oppression came from the Scots of the Lowlands. What was oppressed after the Battle of Culloden was Highlander culture, not Scottish culture. The kilt was never identified as Scottish before the Battle of Culloden, it was something the "wild and barbaric" Highlanders had always worn. The tartan was associated with the Jacobites, so it wasn't unusual for English Jacobites to wear tartan. The tartan, the kilt, the highland bagpipes... all the things that were banned was from the Highlander culture. Never fully Scottish. It became part of the Scottish identity much later on.

Alright, I am going to concentrate on the brothers of this fanfiction, beginning with Scotland.

I honestly wished you were being truthful when you said the author showed "a tad bit of favouritism" towards Scotland. You call that a tad? It was too much for me. If I honestly wasn't studying in Scotland and I didn't already love the Scots for their humour and charm, the fanfiction would have managed to make me hate Scotland, that's how bad the praising got. I get that Kopanda is proud of her country. I'd be proud too. Scotland is a wonderful country. But her fanfiction was littered with too much praise for the character and for the country itself. One error that really became annoying for me over the course of the fanfiction: Scotland's nickname isn’t Alba, that is his original native name and is still one of his official names.

To the character himself... my best summing up of him is pixiv Scotland given way too many Gary Stue traits. I was often reminded that I was reading pixiv Scotland. I honestly didn't like the Scotland in the first few chapters, he was very pixiv-like in them. I was really not impressed with that and Kopanda even describes him as a yandere in one of her notes. (and that is normally not a good sign in my book when you need to use a Japanese word to describe a character's personality) And I feel that there is way too much emphasis on Scotland’s “awesomeness” throughout the story and I rarely felt that there was a balance in his character. Sure he's depicted as being rough and is shown with some flaws, but the story seems to almost forgive his flaws and underline how wonderfully Scottish he is instead. He is made out to be the strongest in magic and despite having a magical seal that restricts most of his magic, it is made fairly clear that he was infinitely better than any of the other brothers which kind of bothered me. He is very often the popular target of an antagonist... in one story a fairy queen tries kidnapping him and in two other stories Russia tries kidnapping him to add to his "collection". (and in the first of the two, it really bothers me that Scotland is almost fine with the Russian attempting to kidnap him, he forgives Russia too easily)

In that story as well, his outward lack of concern really bothered me. Firstly, how do you agree to willingly leave with Russia and become part of his collection if England doesn't manage to give him a reason to stay in the UK rather than a reason why he shouldn't leave the UK by dusk? That story in general dragged on for far too long, England would not be so idiotic and would have understood fairly quickly what Scotland needed to hear. To have Scotland force England into such a position where the younger is desperately trying to say what Scotland wants to hear or else another country was taking the Scot away really angered me. My respect for Scotland just about went down the drain completely when he threatened to rape Belarus. I DO NOT care if he was bluffing and never actually intended to act on his words. Belarus was threatening and attacked Scotland but if this had been Nyotalia Belarus for example, would Scotland have threatened the male counterpart with rape? For all the supposed respect Scotland holds for women, he has no problems with focussing on their feminity and outright threatening to rape one, as opposed to perhaps just threatening to pummeling her if she had been a male.

That story overall was extremely frustrating and I only liked the end where the PM got furious because he couldn't command respect from England and Scotland and it was the Queen who finally got into the situation and gave the two nations a good scolding. THAT was enjoyable and it is unfortunate that the Queen's relationship with Scotland and England wasn’t explored more because I would have rather read that than a contrived situation where Russia wants to steal Scotland because he has pretty red hair, Scotland kind of agrees to go with Russia to scare England, England being forced in a situation where he has to find the correct words to get Scotland to stay, a fight breaking out with Russia trying to take Scotland by force, France getting mixed up in the whole mess, Belarus being threatened to be raped by Scotland and then she's angrily going after him promising to rape him too... AGH, that was not a fun story.

I also came across this in one of Kopanda's notes:

I have the feeling my Scotland isn't violent enough... I think that is because the relationship between Scotland has improved since he got his own parliament in 1997 so he doesn't beat up England so much anymore. Though before a couple of years ago, he used to hit England a lot.

To solve this - I'm going to do some more storys on their pasts together where they used to try and kill each other etc...

There's nothing wrong with focussing on the past but I just feel that Kopanda was searching for an excuse to make Scotland more violent and bash on England some more. That doesn't sit well with me.

I also had a problem that Kopanda gave Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland Scottish accents and Scottish speaking patterns. Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not Scottish and have their own accents. (personally I feel that accents become difficult to keep up with) Every time they spoke, I confused them for Scotland or another Scottish character, that's how distracting it was. I kept having to go back and reread who was speaking.

I also came across this author note late into the fanfiction:

(A/N – One of my friends pointed out that my Scotland is 'a big meanie'…..

Scotland is actually very friendly, his country depends on tourism after all, but he reserves some special dislike for one or two lovely people. England, America and occasionally his other brothers and France only unless provoked.

So he is not 'a big meanie'. Unless his brothers or America is involved…. Then he is.

What I have to point out is that Kopanda hasn't allowed Scotland to act friendly, or extremely rarely to the point that I can't remember it. (he was kinder when he was younger but I don't see him being very nice as an adult to the nations around him, indeed he is rarely friendly as an adult) I don't know, his general behaviour bothered me because I kept being reminded that this is pixiv Scotland with the badass, distant, smug and over-confident attitude and it kept bothering me and I honestly can't remember moments that really showed adult Scotland as being kind and friendly to the nations. I'll give child Scotland at least the recognition that he was nice when he figured out that child Ireland was incredibly jealous of toddler England getting all of Scotland's attention and making the Irish nation feel really insecure about it. There Scotland didn't tease Ireland about his insecurities and did his best to make the other feel at ease. But as an adult...?

I can really remember the moments where I thought "my god this Scotland is a jackass!" It was in the story that America and Scotland had a fight over who knew England better. It quickly turns into a quiz of 20 questions testing their knowledge on England and Canada and Wales act as a judge of this quiz. Naturally we are quickly made clear that America might know a few things but obviously Scotland would know more about England. But the execution of the message? The rules stated that Wales and Canada would ask America and Scotland individually the 20 questions and write their answers down. America of course is confident that he knew better and answers all the questions enthusiastically. After him, Scotland begins the quiz but asks for a paper and while he is being asked the questions, he is writing on this paper. During all 20 questions, Scotland answers "I don't know" and continues to write on his paper. When the answers are gathered and the result calculated, America is evidently declared winner for getting 8/20 as opposed to Scotland getting 0/20. Just as America is excited and happy to have beaten Scotland, the Scot hands him the paper where all 20 questions are answered correctly with a justification of why he knew this was true on each question. And so America was publicly shamed in front of other nations and he is embarrassed to the point that he tears up. Now, this story could have functioned as rebuffing America’s sometimes obnoxious assumptions that he knows better and that he is superior to the others. He is a young nation after all. But this was unnecessarily mean and uncalled for. Merely rebuffing him and winning the quiz would have been a strong enough lesson for America that he isn’t the one who knows England the best. But no, Scotland felt the need to let America believe that he won and then smash his pride to pieces and humiliate him for being so foolish to believe that he could beat one of England’s brothers. And Scotland gets away with this quite literally scot-free. None of the other nations call him out on it and simply shrug it off with silent message “That’s Scotland for you and he put the obnoxious American his place.” The story literally forgives Scotland for what I think is honestly quite mean-spirited. Scotland overstepped the boundaries of simply showing someone else that he knew more on a particular subject and I feel that it is unfair that even the story itself seems to forgive Scotland.

Moving on to Wales. I don’t have tons to say about him because there isn’t that much to talk about. I feel that Kopanda, like me, was at loss at what type of character Wales could be and went for the generic quiet guy who never really talks much. (thus meaning that Wales was incredibly flat at the beginning) On my side, I feel that my Wales eventually did start to develop and expand, becoming a bit more than just a quiet guy. With Kopanda’s Wales… he does start developing in chapter 21 (which I feel is a bit late) and while he is given more depth in that chapter, he unfortunately doesn’t seem to develop beyond being a quiet character. One annoyance that I had with him was that he was constantly being treated as a clone of England and many nations confuse Wales for a too-quiet England. To add to the confusion, Wales is alternatively described as having brown hair in one chapter and blond hair in another. In one chapter Kopanda eventually declares that Wales is both colours.

Next, Northern Ireland. Or how Kopanda kept referring to him, North Ireland. Which did start really peeving me off because North and Northern don’t hold the same connotations for me, Northern implies part of North and North implies the whole North. (and Northern Ireland covers some of the north island, he doesn’t cover the entire north) Okay, that is just a thing with the name but it really got to me. It’s like calling Canada exclusively North America, that would irritate a number of Americans too, no?

Apart from my rant about Northern Ireland’s name, he is actually the only character that I enjoyed throughout the whole fanfiction. I feel that he is almost the only reason why I kept reading through the fanfic, I just enjoyed his personality and his tendency to be a blabbermouth so much. I thought him rather charming.

Ireland… *sigh* where do I even begin with him? From all the brothers, I must have disagreed with his interpretation the most. His only recognizable trait throughout most of the fanfic was just being the angry guy. A Celtic version of South Italy if you will. I think in certain aspects, he is flatter than Wales. Yeah, the angry guy is flatter than the quiet guy. Mainly because Wales was given some depth while Ireland… he was just constantly angry, I had to wait until chapter 52 to finally see another emotion instead of anger and grumpiness from Ireland. (and I find that to be alarmingly late) And sadly he didn’t seem to develop for a long time again until chapter 102, where it is shown that he isn’t constantly angry. I don’t know, I feel like Kopanda didn’t really know what to do with Ireland and so only made him a very anti-English and constantly angry character. It just doesn’t make sense to me for a character to be angry so often. His relationship with England wouldn’t be so tense in modern times, I might expect teasing/mocking and awkwardness but not this degree of tenseness. And something that told me Kopanda hadn’t done a lot of research on Ireland: in the first story, she presents Ireland as holding a strong dislike and grudge towards France because of his relationship with Scotland. Ireland and France have a historically strong military relationship and I do think the Irish and French view each other fondly with some degree of respect as they were often ready to stand on the same side against the English. Certainly the relationship isn’t without flaw but Ireland wouldn’t have reacted so negatively towards France.

Also, in the last story… I swear I was shocked and horrified by what Ireland did. Scotland gets shot in the forehead and after hours of difficult operating to get the bullet out and Scotland being in a coma… YOU. SHOULD. NOT. PUNCH. HIM. IN. THE. FACE!! No, I was enraged. No matter how desperate and afraid you are over someone, you do NOT punch them in the face just after they’ve suffered from a bullet in the forehead. That is so far removed from common sense… knowing Ireland’s nature, he would have either expressed his violence on Wales (who was in the same room), or on one of the nurses, on a window, on any other inanimate object, on the machines of the room, heck, maybe Scotland’s arm… BUT NEVER THE FACE!

Overall, I often found the brothers to be too violent, I can accept them being rough and tough but I felt it was exaggerated in the fanfiction. I didn’t particularly agree with the order of eldest to the youngest among the brothers either, although that can often fall down to personal taste… but using history as justification, I maintain that Ireland would be the eldest, Scotland would be lucky to be the second eldest but could be very likely the third eldest, Wales overlaps with Scotland and could be older or younger than him and Northern Ireland is definitely the youngest, he wouldn’t be the same age as Ireland.

I also had a problem with how Pictish and the Picts were presented in the fanfiction. It didn’t show me much research was done on them but I will not be too harsh on Kopanda, knowing myself how insultingly difficult it is to find accurate information on the Picts that doesn’t start skipping into contrived theories about who they were. But I need to correct what Kopanda said about them.

She describes the Picts as “strange people, very different from the Celts that inhabited the other brothers and the south of Scotland, with odd social habits like exogamy, totemism, women warriors and a strange language that only they knew.” and “They were a very distinct race that took pride in beautiful tattoos that covered their entire body in unique shapes and patterns. Another name for them was the 'Painted Ones'.”

Now, yes, Pict comes from Pictii which does mean “Painted Ones”. However, Picts were Celts. The Pictish identity came into existence when the fragmented Celtic tribes to the north unified to face the common Roman threat from the south. They split off from the Britons but were still Brythonic for the duration of their existence. Exogamy was not so strange in Celtic societies, neither was totemism nor women warriors… these habits were characteristic of Celtic societies, there’s nothing odd about them. The Pictish language was certainly Brythonic too and some ogham have been found on Pictish stones and recently someone used the knowledge gathered from Irish ogham to read what was written on the stones and it wasn’t Irish at all, they’re almost certain that it is Pictish. They’re in the process of finding someone who speaks Welsh and is familiar with primitive Welsh so that they can compare Welsh and Pictish and figure out what is written on the stones. It is very difficult, but not impossible.

What I also don’t like is that Kopanda glorifies the Picts as some kind of ancient mystical race. She claims that the word “pixie” comes from the name Picts but that is just a theory, we can’t draw a straight line that proves beyond a doubt that the word “pixie” truly originates from the name for the Picts. She also writes that Pictish was “the ancient language of the fairies and pixies." … Pictish is an extinct Celtic language, not a mythical language.

In general it bothered me how England was portrayed very often as a jerk to justify any of his brothers acting like jackasses towards him. At one point in the fanfiction, I think the story where Russia tries to "steal" Scotland, Scotland and the other brothers interupt a World Meeting and attack England and... tie him up? Yeah, and the story never really tells you why they did that, they just did it. I was honestly confused by the randomness. Also throughout most stories, I was just really struck by the blatant disrespect that was shown towards England sometimes from his brothers. At one point in the story, America uses words that are considered as slurs for Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, claiming that England taught him that. Scotland informs the others of that through his phone and what to they do? Ireland destroys England's car and Wales and Northern Ireland destroy England's garden. Yes, they have good reason to be upset by the slurs but attacking and destroying England's possessions out of revenge? Firstly, I find that this is an exaggerated reaction. Secondly, it is disrespectful and it kind of shows that the brothers don't respect England. YES, England may have acted like a jackass towards them when he was an empire but this DOES NOT excuse sinking to his level. I was also alarmed how the story tried presenting this as something hilarious and completely justified.

Now, if you’re still reading this review at this point, some of you might wonder: “Is there anything good about this fanfiction?” I am very harsh and critical, but not all stories are bad and there are aspects that Kopanda wrote really well. I just don’t feel she’s focused enough on those aspects which I find unfortunate. She has potential, I will freely admit that she is really good at writing emotionally compelling scenes. There were times where I had to stop reading because it became very emotionally packed for me and I often see that as a good sign of writing. Unfortunately I didn’t feel that she attempted to expand on that ability further and it frustrates me because her writing has potential. This is why I am so harsh, because I see what her writing could be with some help and guidance.

Kopanda develops interesting headcanons, I don’t agree with all of them but I’ll accept that some of them are really good, especially the mythology based ones. (but I am a big sucker for mythology, after all) I was also impressed that Kopanda used Scots-Gaelic, I think that must be the first time I see it being used in a Hetalia fanfiction and while I have spotted a few mistakes, my general feeling is that of respect that she attempted to work with the language. Her fanfiction has issues but there are aspects that she does very well, to the point that I feel she should have concentrated on them more. From the brothers, the only one I truly enjoyed was Northern Ireland because of his chatty personality and I found him rather charming. Scotland… maybe my dislike of Pixiv Scotland posed a problem but his Gary Stue traits and having his attitude being forgiven by the story time and again made it very difficult for me to appreciate this interpretation as well. Ireland was too angry and grumpy, I couldn’t appreciate this interpretation of him. Wales was ultimately too quiet, I sort of liked him but was left disappointed that he wasn’t explored further.

I apologise for this long review and I apologise if it comes across as too harsh. This fanfiction tried my patience and tolerance far too often and the good aspects weren’t strong enough to cancel out the bad. I’m sorry.

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