Lindisfarne, 793 AD

America: What happened to him?

Kumajirou: He was forced to socialise with extended family.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how the main difference between Alfred and Matt is ambition and it's relationship with faith.

Alfred wants the world. He did on some level want the industrial and economic power that propelled him to the status of power. He resisted it, but he longed for the military might that all but forced his inheritance of the slipping British Empire. He longed for it. Maybe more for the respect at first, the ability to look Arthur in the eye as a man and equal, and only reluctantly for the ability to shape the world but he wanted it all the same. And he has faith he'll have it and that he deserves it. He believes with every ounce of himself that his way, his values, his path was the best one. Not only for him but for anyone around him. First the Americas, and then the world. There are doubts that whisper in his ear that sound like the roaring flames of hell and they nag at his conscience but they disapears under the barrage of success that he desired. He is God's chosen country. Icarus flew too close to the sun, and tumbled into the sea on broken wings when sun-warmed wax melted away. But Alfred swallowed the sun itself, took it into his hands and surpassed all other nations when he became that first nuclear power. He has utter faith that the entire world will dance to the tune he chooses.

Matt has little ambition. If he has any, it is only to survive, to avoid being swallowed whole by the competing empires that gave him breath and the brother he's bound too. He was the second son of the British Empire, Arthur's most dependable child. The First Dominion of Empire. Sounds so grand, like he's so in line with Arthur. It should be that he had faith in imperial dreams, in that world upon which the sun did not set upon his family and an ambition to serve it and prop it up in all things. But there is little of it there. He is the abandoned son of the French Empire. He has no faith in loyalty or in safety or love nor in any ambition too it. Except that innate need to survive. And Matt, well he is the North. Here, survival means warmth. Not the fires of nuclear power but of warmth and community and fire. Matthew's utter devotion to his Father and his family is given without so much expectation as hope that it will be returned when the brink is near and he needs help.

Matt looks softer, kinder than his brother, but he has that same sort of sharp ambition to him under it all. It's so much smaller as he has little faith in anything he gives being returned, but his one small need demands he give anyway. The North American brothers are much the same. It's just Alfred is so much louder and less desperate and more honest than Matt.

It’s pumpkin dance man! October is a good month.

Feel free to check out my shop!

Edit: pumpkin dance sticker sheets are up in my shop!

Frater Familias

Words: 5,719

Summary: Churchill lies, Singapore falls, an empire abandons his children in a sea of wolves. When their brother finds out, there will be hell to pay.In early 1942, Alfred Jones travels across the globe to save his baby brother and sister from the betrayal of their father. When Arthur Kirkland returns at long last, his eldest is waiting for him, ready to spill blood.

Warnings: Language, mentions of death and bodily injury.

Author’s Note: I kept things very vague to make it easier for myself, but this takes place not too long after the Battle of Coral Sea in May 1942.

You can also read on Ao3 if you prefer

————–

Alfred Jones hadn’t wanted to kill his father this badly since 1781. Come to think of it, Alfred wasn’t sure he’d ever wanted to kill his father as much as he did now.

Sure, he hadn’t been pleased that President Roosevelt acquiesced to Britain’s insistence on a Germany-first strategy. The scar of Pearl Harbor was still fresh and livid, and he was spoiling for a chance to hunt Kiko down personally. Even so, he’d kept his mouth diplomatically shut and had taken heart when Churchill assured him that British forces in the pacific would hold, that the ANZACs would have plenty of reinforcements to hold allied territories there.

That, as it turned out, had been a massive lie. Gargantuan. Colossal. Titanic, in fact. His father might as well have designed the ship himself, stuck his two youngest on board without lifeboats bound straight for an ice field, and stayed cozy in Belfast while Alfred broke his back feeding coal to the Carpathia in a blind, unplanned panic. Churchill fiddled while Singapore fell, and Father fiddled along with him.

“Where is he?” Alfred demanded, ignoring the guard at the entrance who was trying to slow him down.“

“I’m sorry?” Asked the startled British soldier stationed at the war room door.

“Arthur Kirkland. Where is he?”

The soldier took a few tries to say, “General Kirkland hasn’t yet arrived, sir.”

“Fine. Which room will be his?”

“Sir, I’m so sorry, can I get your name, I’ll need to ask–”

“Where?” Alfred demanded, and there was something in his too-perfect voice, his too-blue eyes, that made the soldier startle and point immediately down the hall.

“End of the hall, on the left.”

Alfred stormed in that direction without a word. The soldier blinked a few times. A deer released from headlights, it took him a moment to get his bearings.

“Wait,” he called after Alfred, quickly jogging after him. “Wait sir, you’re not allowed to-” but Alfred was already inside, going around to sit in the officer’s chair behind the empty letter desk. “Sir, the General won’t be here for another five, six hours.”

“Fine,” Alfred said, and had this young Australian known him better, he would have known to be frightened by his stoic, collected anger. Facial expression unchanging, the American wheeled back in the chair and propped his feet on the desk. “I’ll wait.”

Keep reading

did this lil art trend for funsies

I just want to see him with short hair

Work in progress! My APH Philippines in a Maria Clara.

APH Spain forcing her to pose in an itchy dress for a dang picture