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Happy holidays ! Ft. The boroughs & Will/Albany. No text version beneath

Happy birthday Ryan!! Some lawyer AlbGusta for you!

Oh my goodness, Sassy. Those absolute nerds, I love it so much! Thank you!

#ryan speaks #aph augusta #aph albany #albgusta #flyingsassysaddles #IM SO HAPPY RN LOOK AT THEM OMG #AHHHHHHHH #submission #business au

A Love Letter

So @askaphmaine posted an ask meme to send a love letter to one of their muses, and of course, I thought “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED” and made a 6 page love letter to aph Maine from an anonymous person they were supposed to guess by context clues, but it got really long and like heck I was putting all that in their ask box, so I decided to just post it here. This is a love letter from [redacted] to Mackenzie (aka Maine), and try and find out if you can see who they are! I hope I didn’t make it too obvious ;;

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Dearest Mack,

I haven’t the courage to send you this love letter in person, though I had gotten as close as about to hand it to you as you passed me by. Yet, this still was an unconquerable task for me, and I slipped away without letting you know that I was a foot away from revealing my feelings for you. I redrafted this letter so many times my trash bin needed to be emptied more than once, filled with the paper with the words I botched up while trying to transcribe my longing into written form. After a million tries, and a million thrown away letters, I have come upon this draft, where I have chosen to take the direct approach instead of dragging out my words into paragraphs upon paragraphs of words. As you may know, I’m not a person who reveals their true feelings very often, and especially not through paper.

I was thinking today of my love for you, how it made me feel butterflies in my stomach to hear your name, how the moment you step into the room you alight every part of my being, how you make me feel so alive just by fluttering your eyelids and lifting the corner of your mouth into that mystic smile you wear so well. I thought of this while you passed me by, wearing clothes that many would find unfitting for one of your status yet you wear them as well as any princess would a gown, and I had the sudden urge to write it all down, as if one letter could hope to match up for the bottomless love I have accumulated for you over the years.

I remember you at the ball last week, the one thrown by Lady Mary Baltimore, and which I was forced to go to by my family to see the sights and sounds of the world, even though I would much rather stay at home in my study then socialize with the people at one of Mary’s party, as she always seems to make the most curious of friends that can drink the most curious of wine and still be able to juggle a few bottles while hopping on one foot, as you may recall from the spectacle. I was talking to one of these curious men, though this one, a certain Warren McKinley, has been known by both you and I for much longer than we give him credit for, and he, being the man that he is, guided my gaze towards you as you walked into the room.

I was cast in shock at once, my legs locking into place and my face going red as I saw you, in the clothes you would never wear, dressed as the epitome of fashion, your locks of coffee and midnight placed in the most intricate bun that complemented your face and made your wise eyes seem to glow in the dim light of the ballroom. Your gown was a rich red, the color of crimson, and dare I say the color of my cheeks when we locked eyes, and then you lifted up a corner of your painted lips as some sort of small greeting that I am still trying to unlock the meanings of, and looked away, soon swept up by Lady Mary and taken around the ballroom, to greet her curious strangers while I tried to recover from the vastness of your beauty in that moment. I too was swept away, and this gave me more time to recover and return my face to a somewhat acceptable shade of red, though I must say Warren’s eagerness to get me drunk was not much help in this endeavor. I caught glimpse of you throughout the night, your small, patient smile that radiated off you and entranced my heart until I wanted to swoop you away to have that smile to myself; the way you spoke softly, waiting for everyone to become silent and listen to your words of wisdom that had been so tested by the trials of time, all of it enchanting. My love, I must confess that I refused to drink a single drop of Lord Penn’s fine wine and Lady Mary’s rich liquor in fear that I would lose my sense and march up to you, and in some error in my impulse confess to your red painted lips and wide eyes my true feelings that I have harbored ever since we first met, and I’m afraid that in the pursuit of not weakening and giving in to my desires, I was rude to you on the way out of the ball.

You came up to me, hurrying past a hovering Mary and our good friends Aaron and Michael, though I doubt you would consider him so, and you stopped right in front of me, panting slightly and recovering your breath before one last final smile shone off your face as you said to me, “You are leaving, aren’t you? Can’t you escort me out as well, I am dreadfully tired of this party and I long for a goodnight’s air.” I must confess again, that I wish it was me that you longed for, and as my thought was caught up in this fact, you tugged my arm and we left Mary’s ball, walking out into the corridor and down the small steps to the door. You turned to me again, and you said, “Do you mind staying out here with me a bit? I do not wish to go back to that awful place; if I have to talk to another stranger about the early snow I must say I will shove some of that snow up into their noses. They don’t know what true snow is like, right old friend?” You smiled at me again, inviting me to stay by your side and talk like we used to with a quirk of your cherry lips, but yet my feelings of adoration and love for your humor and your still flushed face and the way you looked at me with complete innocence disallowed me from trusting myself with you, because I wasn’t just your old friend anymore. I was a man who held feelings, love, and more emotions than I could count for your enchanting lilac eyes, and I knew I couldn't stay, even though a man inside me longed to do so, and I said, “I have to leave, Mackenzie. I cannot stay, I have business to attend to. Good night.” I saw the way you flinched back when I said your full name, a breach of the code of friendship we signed as children, to always be ourselves and tell the truth, yet I broke this by retreating, by not giving you an informal and friendly answer, but I was afraid to be informal with you, afraid that one false word would unleash the floodgates of my emotions and pour them out for you to judge with your harsh eyes, for you to reject and send the remains of my heart out onto the streets where they belonged.

I left, dear Mack, and I was again afraid to look back, so I slammed the door to try and shock myself awake, to get me out of this trance I have been drowning in, my longing for you growing every day until I couldn’t glance at your innocent face without looking away in shame. I am sorry that I did it, for immediately after, it occurred to me that you could interpret this as anger, even though I could never hold a shred of resentment for you, but I could not turn back, for I had already said I would leave and I already made a spectacle of myself as it is, so I kept walking until I called a carriage to take me back to my manor. And there I have stayed for the past two weeks, tossing away letters of apology and going over every detail of that evening in my mind, trying to come up with some way to make it up to you, until my hands wrote the word love in the middle of a paragraph, and I knew I had to write a letter showing how I truly felt and give it to you for you to inspect yourself, for I fear you would embarrass and ruin me greatly have I told you in private. The letter never made it’s way to your hand, however, so the virtues of mail will have to do.

I cannot elaborate on my feelings Mack, in fact, I feel I have already said too much for a man of my composure, but I can say that I love you with every beat of my heart, with every breath I breathe, and with every stroke of this pen. The depths of this love reaches far deeper than I can hope to fathom, and I know that I will keep loving you, my dear Mack, until the end of my days. Your firm hand, your dry wit, your wise lilac eyes, your shimmering hair, your scarlet lips, your mind that can entertain the most brilliant of thoughts even God could scarcely hold knowledge of, all of it only seems to affirm my love whenever I catch a glimpse of you, and I write to say in the sincerest words any man could say to a woman, and I say it to my old friend as well.

I am in love with you Mackenzie.

With the lofty and pitiable hopes you feel the same,

Lord [Redacted]

#who is it????#does Mack like her back???#did Warren ever get him to drink any wine???#find out next time on dragonball Z!#also this is my first time writing a love letter so sorry if it;s a little meh #but hey a love letter!#that's something right?#((also ten bucks you knew it from like the third paragraph))#aph maine #aph delaware #aph maryland #aph pennsylvania #aph albany #aph massachusetts #and no I'm not tagging the redacted guy nice try #writing #love letters #sassy's writing

part 1 of 2 for a little halloween comic. posting the rest tmmrw >:)

NYC and rest of the state basically solidified its wealth &power in the northeast with the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825.

This was really the beginning of Lynn/NYC’s present “girl boss” arc as she began to get a taste of excessive power in this era.

Also the beginning of her rather let’s say tumultuous relationship with Will/ Albany. The Erie Canal already brought these two cities closer by making trade even easier to conduct along the Hudson River.

Will tends to be rather reserved, and very stubborn- talking to him is like scratching nails across a chalkboard. A lot of people calls him boring (and a pain in the ass cause he tries to act impartial but he’s always partial to Lynn- even when she’s being a nuisance and driving him crazy). Sometimes Lynn can be let’s say overly ambitious to a fault that can harm everyone else, and Will tends to pull the breaks on that which is often the source of conflict between them. They’re opposites fundamentally. But they compliment each other. Lynn can get him out of his shell, and actually be sociable. Will keeps Lynn in reality lol, and he is a calming influence on her most of the time.

Some Hudson Valley holidays that occur in May ft. my idiots. Just wanted to draw some costumes ngl 💀. Anyways I’ll give some explanation to each of the little Polaroids cause ik most of these holidays aren’t well known.

Just a drawing of Emma celebrating Pinkster. I haven’t drawn Emma in years lolllll & I don’t work on her much anymore, but I thought she’d partake in the festivities. In this region, Pinkster is a Pentecost celebration brought over by the Dutch, but became more associated with the traditions brought over by enslaved Africans especially as their enslavers would allow them to travel and see their families and celebrate during this time. European settlers also partook in these festivities as well, but it just became more associated as an African-American holiday within New York & New Jersey.

Elise & Jennie being nice for a moment and taking a photo together lol, they probs went back to bickering after this cause they have issues 💀. Jennie is there cause this is her state capital, Elise was probably just invited cause she’s Jennie’s sister and both were alive during the Dutch colonial area. But anyways this is supposed to be them at Albany’s Tulip Festival. Tulip Fest began about 76 years ago celebrating Albany & Nijmegen’s friendship especially as the citizens of Albany raised significant funds and sent much needed supplies to Nijmegen following the Second World War. Also many Dutch-Americans in this area can trace their ancestry back to Gelderland. The Anyways Tulip Festival is a celebration of that friendship, but also of Albany’s Dutch heritage. The particular costumes Elise & Jennie are wearing is associated with the street sweeping ceremony + these costumes were only introduced to Albany 76 years ago. These are new here. Actually Emma & Will’s costumes are older.

Ok just a little silly doodle of Lynn giving Will a kiss during Pinkster.

oh whoops realizing I never shared this here, but it’s mostly a sketch page of my New York girlies ❤️🫶 Jennie/ NY State & Lynn/ Manhattan, NYC.

I’ve had Lynn for nearly ten years. Honestly I love her so much as a character, her ascent to power is messy and her decisions are highly questionable but that makes her fun (and a bit of an evil girlboss). Similar with Jennie. I’ll save this for another time tho lol

I’ll explain some of the sketches but I don’t have anything errr super important to say in regards to my au lore and what not in this post. I’m just very proud of how this page came out :) !

Spring 1775

This is from a scene in a fiction piece I’m writing called “To Prevent Consequence.” Anyways this scene occurs in 1775, basically Jennie/ New York State is being more or less threatened by Arthur due to the rebellious activities her relatives like Elise/ New Jersey and Will/ Albany, NY, and neighbors like Henry/ Massachusetts and his cousin, Alfred.

Now at this point in time Jennie DID NOT want to partake in what was becoming the revolution (they were not quite here yet). She was still perceived as too Dutch (and Sephardi) by her peers as she used to be a Dutch colony so she didn’t really receive all that much respect from them other than her business expertise. Jennie didn’t want to rock the boat too much and risk her businesses, and she saw these rebellious activities especially from Henry & Alfred as just another inter-English conflict.

The 13 colonies were becoming difficult to govern following the French & Indian War (North American theatre of the Seven Years War) because this was the first time Arthur would’ve actually had a chance to properly govern them hence why the operated under salutary neglect. It’s not that he didn’t care to govern them, but other than his first colony Rich/Virginia, he never got a chance to spend much time with any of them because he was either in his own civil war or he was in non-stop European wars (which also dragged his 13 colonies in as well). He also began to show up because Rich had forced his hand into the French & Indian war and he realized it was time to like get these colonies under control. Initially, he tried to be like maybe a stern uncle, or teacher when he first got a chance to properly meet all of them. However he had let them all essentially do their own thing for so long that they all had separate cultures and ideas*, and he knew he had to start ruling them with heavier hand hence why he started taxing them more, and made some attempts at state religion. Simply put, the colonies were not fond of this, especially the New Englanders like Henry/Massachusetts & Alfred who saw this as another attempt to suppress their “rights to be new Englanders.”

ANYWAYS her younger sister, Elise & cousin, Will on the other hand saw the brewing conflict as a chance to assert their Dutch-ness. A lot of American ideas about plurality of religion and ethnicity can be traced back to the plurality seen in the New Netherland colony (which was mostly New York & New Jersey- Pennsylvania also had these ideas but that’s cause of the Quakers lol). Meanwhile, her long-time neighbor, and frenemy Henry/Massachusetts & Alfred were starting shit with Arthur mostly cause they just didn’t want to be ruled so heavily by him. Henry & Jennie have a complicated relationship, but one thing you can count on is that Jennie annoys / enrages the ever the fuck out of Henry for just being there; and she gleefully antagonizes him enough that sometimes he just stops. Arthur generally likes Jennie, but he still wasn’t the biggest fan that she was still rather Dutch despite being a colony of his for a little over 100 years at this point.

Arthur was hoping by threatening Jennie with like y’know harming her relatives that Jennie could placate both her relatives and Henry and Alfred somehow. And this worked for a time at making Jennie even more hesitant to partake in the Revolution. Jennie does also have a good poker face normally, but like lol her boss is threatening her in this scene so.

I’ll save this for another post, but Jennie does of course eventually participate and she goes hard for these assholes. She starts off as an “outsider” amongst these English colonies and quickly becomes a vital player and honestly a trusted confidant of Alfred’s.

Little tidbits

- Alfred IS NOT Arthur’s son in this AU. Actually they don’t develop a meaningful relationship until much later on. I do see their relationship that of like an uncle/teacher nephew/student. But this post isn’t about him lol. I will say that, I see his early character growth being really developed by his interactions with states and cities and indigenous nations rather than with European nations

- I heavily rely folkways a lot to inform my Nor’Easter verse lore because I really enjoy US history, but I personally don’t like:

1) shoving everything into one character (Alfred) hence why I make use of states and cities (they’re not all related to him nor are they all necessarily friends with him).

2) I like US history, and I really love the social and regional discourses within it. So having states and cities represent perhaps “outsider” groups (ex not WASPs) allows me to do that whilst also explaining the history of that state / city in relation to US history.

- *SO these colonies DID DEVELOP DIFFERENTLY. I’m using the regions put forth by Albion’s Seed to inform the more “English” areas of the nation- so basically the “root” culture of these regions are

17th century East England = New England

17th century English/Scottish borderlands = Appalachia

17th century southwestern English gentry = tidewater south

Quakers are deadass their own thing + 17th Century English Midlands

Everything is regional in my understanding of the world. Modern English national culture was being created and also being enforced in the colonies, and these colonies had developed from different regional English cultures and wanted to continue their traditions within those so to a certain extent the American Revolution was sort of an English civil war and these colonies wanted to assert their right to be English (or whatever else) in their own way.

I look at other cultures, but this is all a case by case thing, my main focus is New York, which is uniquely Dutch.