new chapter out of This is the Place to Affix the Stamp and it's a pretty good one i think. Please enjoy these in-universe tweets/memes. the DONI's terribly beautiful/ugly logo under the cut bc i worked too hard on it:
its bad on purpose but isn't she beautiful? If a real graphic designer made it it would look more true to the rules of logos but I am simply a girl with canva. This is an approximation. Now I need this on a hoodie STAT.
I am just always thinking about how Arthur integrates with the royal family and how he would know these children for all of their lives pretty much and I also think about George III had a son named Alfred who died when he was not even 2 years old in 1782 at the end of the American revolution. The death being sort of symbolic for him as a father. And then the next royal Alfred was a son of Victoria born in 1844 and he married a Russian. Basically. So there’s that
I just think about Arthur and the royals a lot. How the children would see him. It would depend on how the parents presented him to them which I could see as either being as a servant to the country or Uncle Arthur. The pendulum swings. And some princes were named Arthur so it’s fun to think maybe they were named after him (I’m looking at you, Victoria. She was going for blood with the names of her kids)
I’m doing research on the whole Russian Ships Docked In New York in 1863 Situation and I ended up on this website reading an account of the whole thing by the Naval Historical Foundation and it included this image which I just wanted to share with the world because I did a reverse image search and didn’t find it anywhere else:
Based on the source it seems this was a cartoon by a New York newspaper published on Nov 21, 1863 shortly after a reception for the Russians and it features the national animals of England, France, Russia, and America. England and France are so pissy here because Russia was refusing to join in mediation efforts during the Civil War which would probably lead to full recognition and separation for the Confederates. The Russians made it very well known that they supported the Union (mostly because America was a country they could team up with against the UK if it ever came to that). England and France were kinda pro the division of America because then it would knock America down a peg globally and they would have a harder time enforcing their Monroe Doctrine against France’s colonial pursuits (anti-European interference in the New World basically)
The Russians did not tell anyone that they would be docking in New York (and San Francisco). They were really doing it because they wanted a reserve of ships safe in other ports should war break out in Europe (unrelated). Showing support for the Union was a secondary thing and not really even the intention at all. But nobody knew this in New York at the time so “yay the Russians are here to help us!” Also, it was a pretty good way of telling France and England to back off. If you are at all interested in this topic you should read the linked pamphlet. It’s very good.
Anyway this is a post about Hetalia and I just thought that pissed off gross lion was giving total England vibes. And don’t even get me started on the fruk/rusame implications of this drawing from 160 years ago. Like they didn’t have to do all that. I really really love how pathetic the France rooster looks.
I wanted to sit down and actually figure out some of the backstory for the Department of National Identity universe because i’ve been flying by the seat of my pants making stuff up for this, so here is my official treatise on what happened to the FACE fam from 1600 and beyond. I had to go back and read everything all over again to make sure nothing gets retconned because, as I said, I am very bad at keeping all of this straight.
This is very long. It's 5,000 words so it's basically a fanfic. Enjoy.
(Another reason why i’m doing this is also to figure out how this FACE backstory is different to what we see in the Lions Den fics because I do want them to be different and I might point out some of those differences periodically—sorry if you don’t care about the LD stuff)
TW for child death, I guess. I'm not proofreading this before I post it so hopefully there's nothing too crazy in here.
Concerning Jamestown
So. Arthur heard through the grapevine that having a successful colony would create a new Nation--it would create a baby. As the world's most miserable sod, disliked by most of his peers in Europe, this sounded very compelling. Keep in mind he's physically and mentally in his early twenties at this point probably. I feel like it is a core trait of his that he's chronically lonely and he wants to have connections with people but he doesn't like feeling vulnerable, and he feels like everyone he meets already have these preconceived notions about him. Arthur's thinking is that if he can acquire a child, that could be unconditional companionship without the interference of anyone else.
So Arthur urges North American colonization. (It doesn't even register that this is a very bad thing because it's the 1500s. In 2025, Arthur is very aware that this was a bad thing.) He fully supports it, no matter the price, because he's got his heart set on having a child. He finally got his wish with Roanoke in 1585, but it failed. They tried again in 1587, and he thought it might finally work, but it too failed by 1590. He feels incredibly guilty about this, as he doesn't know if it produced a Nation but if it did, that Nation has died. Lowkey dude probably had nightmares about it. Just killing himself over the thought that he might have created new life but never met them, and no one knows what happened to them.
After this, Arthur becomes VERY invested in making a North American colony work. He says that he' going himself to the New World, and he's not leaving until he has his baby. He's so jazzed at the thought of this, so certain that it will work, that he's got names picked out before he even sets sail across the Atlantic. Alfred or Amelia. In May 1607, Arthur and 144 settlers land in Virginia, and they name the settlement Jamestown after the current monarch, James I. Keep in mind that Arthur contributed absolutely nothing in terms of physical labor to the settlers and they were probably all very annoyed by the young rich man who spent all of his time "surveying the area" and asking if anyone had seen any spare babies just lying around. Arthur, at the very most, picked berries and hunted deer. Perhaps he drew a map.
He spends one year helping to cultivate Jamestown until he gets the news he's been waiting on this entire time. On May 14th, 1608 (the first anniversary of the founding), he receives the news that a child not belonging to anyone had been found in a field of the hottest new cash crop--tobacco (this is a call back to the ask I got last week about how NPs are born). Arthur was told about this pretty quickly because he'd been muttering about babies for a year. Everyone thought he was just kinda crazy until- oh, there’s that baby he’s been talking about this whole time. So yeah, once enough time has passed for a collective identity to form somewhere, it creates an NP. It probably only took a year in Jamestown because there was already an established identity for English colonists in America after Roanoke. How are they born? I don't know they just show up. Delivered by a stork or the Stardew Valley crop fairy or aliens. Corn was also present but the English were super into tobacco and it was the main export for a while.
(This is how Alfred gets his middle name. the people of Jamestown couldn't really figure out how the hell any of this happened, or how Arthur knew it would happen, so they call him Freegift. A free gift from God, but also in reference to the verse, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Arthur is like “ok a little weird but whatever it’s cute I guess”)
Arthur definitely cries the moment he's left alone with his brand new baby. By this point he's been heartbroken about Roanoke for twenty years and that unresolved trauma definitely leads to his unhealthy near-obsession with Alfred later on. Once he's sure that his child isn't going to randomly die, he decides to go back to England with Alfred. He wants to show off his tobacco baby to King James (who probably cared more about the tobacco than the baby) and he's also very aware that things will go poor for them if they stay in Jamestown long enough for people to notice Alfred isn't aging. (Reminder: Arthur has been burned for witchcraft like 10 times by this point. Jamestown was actually a Church of England settlement and not Puritan [like Plymouth in 1620], but they were still sensitive to ageless babies obviously). The bad thing is that, coincidentally, Arthur leaving corresponds with the Starving Time (winter of 1609-1610 where people were... starving). He would have left in the early fall of 09 probably, and Alfred would start getting sick shortly after arriving in the winter. It is a coincidence, but Arthur connects this to Alfred being in England, and assumes that the sickness is from him leaving North America too early.
As Arthur is already sensitive to the idea of child death, he freaks out. This time is very stressful for him because he doesn't know what's happening in Jamestown, and he doesn't know that Alfred is starving. There's nothing that can be done about that, though, and he doesn't want to put him back through the hardship of sea travel, so they stay in England. Alfred gets better eventually, but the whole thing traumatizes Arthur for years to come.
(For those of you keeping score, Alfred dies at Jamestown in the Lions Den verse. He's also, like, 3 years old. Arthur does not intentionally make a baby--he didn't even know Alfred existed until he showed up at an already established Jamestown.)
The 1600s
So. Arthur now has this baby that he absolutely adores but he's also incredibly scared that Alfred could die at any moment for whatever reason and that fear is almost crippling. He does not trust anyone else to look after Alfred, he does not trust Alfred to be out of his sight. Arthur is unhealthily attached to this baby because he sees him as this perfect child who loves him unconditionally in return. Alfred (a baby, mind you) is the only person in the world who has the capacity to love him in the way he's been wanting for hundreds of years. If anything happens to this baby, he's killing himself. So because of all of this, he and Alfred are attached at the hip. He moves back and forth between England and the colonies as new settlements are made. Alfred is still sickly, which doesn't do any favors for Arthur's mental state, but he's alright. The only time that Arthur ever lets someone else take care of Alfred are in circumstances where he physically cannot, like during the English Civil Wars. This was probably a hard lesson for him to learn. During these rare occasions where humans watch Alfred, sometimes for months, he makes an effort to find trustworthy families to do it (this is what happened with Salem). He always comes back soon enough so that no one suspects Alfred for not aging.
(Another LD vs DONI difference here. In the LD verse, Arthur pays staff to look after Alfred, and they know that he’s immortal, so Arthur is gone for longer periods. They are much more lax with the secret in the LD verse which leads to it coming out earlier. Also, LD Alfred is hanged because he’d been left alone too long and the aging thing got weird. DONI Alfred is hanged because he was an interloper and a victim of circumstance after children got sick and he did not.)
All of this is not to say that Arthur was perfect, because he clearly was not in a good mental headspace. He's obsessed with Alfred. The main problem for these first hundred years was that Arthur was dependent on Alfred for his own happiness, which can lead to a bad dynamic between parents and children, even if it doesn’t outwardly appear that way. It’s not quite enmeshment or parentifiction, and being a child (still under 10 by the end of the century), Alfred probably didn’t think a thing of it. He just loved his daddy very much and didn't really notice all the times that he started to feel a little bad/more guilty than he should because he made his dad freak out by doing something normal. Like sneezing. And this would feed back into Alfred being super emotionally dependent on Arthur, but that would have been more normal considering he was literally his son. The most obvious way that that would have manifested would be Alfred having to comfort/assure his father more often than he should have as the child in the relationship. Not that anyone would care about this because it was literally the 1600s. People probably would have thought Arthur was a very good, doting father, if not a little strange on account of him being a young, single man. Arthur definitely met all of Alfred's needs, physical and emotional, he might have just been too much.
Anywho, tldr for the 1600s: incredibly emotionally codependent to a poor degree, but loving dynamic, hardly ever separated, Alfred lived in England maybe half of the time.
The 1700s
The 1700s are defined by an unhealthy attachment, mostly on the part of Alfred, because the Salem incident happened in the 1690s. This event want highly traumatizing (probably the first time he died?) and he never spoke of it with his father out of fear for getting into trouble and also just because he was a kid and it was probably highly confusing. It happened on one of the rare occasions he was left with a human family, though, so once Arthur is back, Alfred doesn't want to be apart from him at all. (Do not ask me how it is that Arthur never found out about this, and how they reunited after Salem. I can probably come up with an explanation but I don't Feel Like It Right Now.)
There were a couple of wars involving the Native Americans at the beginning of the 18th century, and they were sometimes a proxy for what was going on in Europe. Queen Anne's War (1702-1713) was important, as it ended with France ceding some land in Acadia (think of the Maine area) to England. Spain was also involved, as this was part of the War for Spanish Succession. I'd say that maybe this was the first of the bigger conflicts Alfred was involved in? I mean, he was like 10 at the time, but still. It probably caused him some physical ailments, and that probably pissed Arthur off.
Speaking of France. This entire time, Arthur and Francis have been enemies/begrudging acquaintances with benefits. Its more casual on Francis’s side because he’s in tune with his emotions and stuff and he thinks Arthur is a sad little mew mew who is sick in the head (true). Arthur remains king of the tsunderes and would rather kill himself than admit to liking Francis. Sometimes they complain about parenting together and give each other advice. They've been fooling around with each other since the 1300s or something. France and England fight so often that they see each other a lot, and it’s hard not to get to know a person you're constantly at odds with.
Where is Matthew?? Well he's with Francis of course. Francis is not a perfect saint, and he probably leaves Matthew alone more than he should, but he at least has a more healthy emotional relationship with his child than Arthur does. (I am very relieved I never explicitly stated Alfred and Matthew knew each other pre-France/England. Alfred specifically says in the Gemini Report “They hadn’t grown up together. The stability of their relationship is a very modern thing.” There is a line in there about being adopted/kidnapped, which I think I'm gonna edit slightly in the wake of Tobacco Baby Alfred.)
There was fighting in North America between British America and New France once again in the 1740s as a proxy for the War of Austrian Succession (the NA conflict was called King George's War). At this point, England has passed the first of their tax acts in America (Molasses Act of 1733), and smuggling is being allowed to happen because the economy would crash without out. Bad economy = bad health, and Alfred is back to being sickly again. The is the start of what the Americans would later call Salutary Neglect, which was a time period between the 30s and 60s where England put these new taxes in place, but hardly ever enforced them because America was happier and more profitable when they had a sorta false feeling of governing themselves, and they were more loyal to England when they were allowed to do this. This is why things blow up so badly after the Seven Years War, but more on that later.
During the treaty arrangements following King George's War, Alfred and Matthew finally meet. Arthur and Francis are in agreement (for once) that fighting between the colonies is bad for their kids, and it might actually be a good thing if their kids had a friend their age. All of this is very out of the norm for Nations and colonies, but Francis and Arthur already have a weird relationship, so whatever. Let the kids have playdates. They immediately had an attachment to each other because of their supernatural North American twin situation, even though they were technically enemies. They were kids so they didn’t care about that. Meeting Matthew and Francis helps to relax Alfred's severe post-Salem attachment issues, which is very helpful to Arthur as Europe constantly implodes on itself.
Hilariously, Arthur and Francis did not know that their kids were twins until this then, as neither had met the other's son by this point.
Arthur and Francis also have similarly bad philosophies on raising their Nation children, which is, "let's just treat them like perfect little children and not the embodiments of the land" because being a parent in North America is a great escape from the stresses of the life of a European Nation. This has very bad repercussions for Arthur.
Arthur Starts Going Crazy
As has been established a couple times in the DONI fics, the deterioration of Alfred and Arthur's relationship comes when Arthur starts to lose himself to the weight of his empire (this is not an idea I came up with, but I love this headcanon, and I think it is most commonly attached to Alfred during the Cold War). In the DONI verse, the Nations are physically very human. When the demands of their Nation become too much for their bodies, they can start to lose bits of their humanity to make up for it. As the English empire (wait, they're British now, so we can call them British) gets larger and more influential in global politics, Arthur starts losing himself. This happens very, very slowly until it reaches a zenith in 1763. More on that later.
The change is so gradual that it is harder to notice. As Arthur becomes more busy with the crown, he trusts Francis with Alfred (omg coparents). Arthur goes from being sort of obsessively overbearing with Alfred to being overbearing with the idea of America, so much so that it starts to smother him. It doesn't help that he starts to be gone for longer and longer periods, and he almost starts to love bomb Alfred during the times they are together. Remember, having Alfred think highly of him is very important to Arthur's emotional wellbeing. Alfred is also entering his teens at this point, and America is growing faster than anything has in the history of forever, and that just makes Arthur's empire related mental illness worse and worse. It's slow, and then all at once.
No matter the terms Arthur is on with Francis, they are powerless to the whims of their people. The Seven Years War breaks out. There's more fighting in North America. England wins, and France gives up Canada. (I think that Francis would be highly upset by this, yes, but not as much as he is in the Lions Den verse because he and Arthur have been lowkey helping each other parent for 30 years at this point. Francis trusts Matthew with Arthur even if he might have a few opinions about his obsession with Alfred. It isn't until he hears from the boys about what's going on that he starts to worry.)
This is a tipping point. When England gains that huge new influence over North America in 1763, it pushes Arthur over the edge. It's not immediate, but within a year of the Treaty of Paris, the British start cracking down on American smuggling. The Stamp, Currency, and Sugar Acts are put into place, which leaves Alfred sicker than he has been in years thanks to the strain on the economy. For the first time in their history, Arthur doesn't care as much that Alfred is sick. It's a shame, but it comes with the territory of being a Nation. Alfred does not understand why he's being ignored so suddenly in this way, and then Arthur starts leaving him and Matthew alone more and more. He doesn't listen to their concerns. He's got an empire to run. Alfred pushes back, and Arthur insists that the treatment it fair. It eventually gets to the point where Arthur is stressing that Alfred is just America, just dirt, and that justifies his actions.
In chapter 5 of This Is The Place to Affix The Stamp, Alfred has a Trump-related meltdown, and Arthur implies that Alfred's words could also be applied to Arthur's treatment of him before the war. That Alfred is so #triggered by Trump because the treatment reminds him of Arthur. Alfred's like noooooo. But Arthur is right.
("He probably wants everyone to think that I’m a mess that needs to be saved, and he’s the only one to do it. That I need to be saved from myself, because I’m just this fool who doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t think I’m valid. And I can’t do anything if he won’t work with me—if he thinks that I’m just. Nothing. And I’m not nothing. I’m real.
"And whenever I try with him, he won’t listen. I know that I’m not always right, and we could work together and figure it out, but he won’t let me. He just wants to be on top, even if that means hurting his own people or hurting me. Because who cares if I get hurt in the process? It doesn't matter what he does to me, because I’m not- I’m just- I’m a piece of land, and I won’t feel it. That’s all I am to him. Dirt to walk on. It doesn’t matter what he does, because dirt doesn’t feel anything, and he can do whatever he likes to me or my capital because-")
(Little burning of Washington reference for you.)
The Revolution
I think a major difference between the DONI and Lions Den universes is that in the Lions Den, Alfred is kind of quiet about the revolution. He tries to reason with his father, but eventually gives up and quietly stops trying. LD Alfred loves his father so much, but by this point, he's already grown resentful of Arthur because he's been left alone so much. He's already used to the absence of his father and he thinks that there's something wrong with him. Being raised by more humans, he's much more religious in a weird way, and that complicates his reaction to everything. Because of their weird codependent attached at the hip relationship, DONI Alfred explodes during the revolution. He's got teeth. If LD Alfred is kicked dog, DONI Alfred is a wolf. DONI Alfred is not worried about sinning by not honoring his father--it doesn't even cross his mind.
Alfred and Matthew are kept in London after the treaty (divorce child exchange happening in Paris after the signing), partially because Arthur is worried that if they're in America, the revolutionary sentiments might influence them. He may be losing his humanity at an alarming rate, but he can recognize how hotheaded Alfred is, and he's actively keeping him from home to not make things worse. This does make things worse, obviously. The feelings in America are bubbling over, and Alfred's grounded in London. That is a recipe for disaster.
He essentially tattles on Arthur to Francis, and Francis promises to lend a hand should war break out. LD Alfred famously does not like to fight, but I feel like DONI Alfred is jumping to join the army. He just feels so betrayed by what has happened, and his father not listening to him, and being treated like a thing after a century and a half of being the only worthwhile person in the world for Arthur. And DONI Alfred knows that he didn't do anything wrong, because he's been with Arthur almost this entire time, and he knows that he has not changed.
War literally breaks out, Alfred and Matthew are still stuck in London. Arthur probably punishes Alfred for the war even though he is not directly involved because in his eyes at this point, Alfred is 100% America. This is such a 180 from how he used to see him as more a child than a colony. He wanted that baby for companionship. He didn't care about the alleged gold in Virginia. He cared about his child.
For the first two years of the war, Alfred is in London. He probably tries to run away at some point because things in their house have gotten so bad (never anything physical, but I bet there's a lot of shouting every day. Reminder, Alfred is 15 at the time. 15 year old boys love to fight their dads) and it probably sucks for Matthew. Arthur probably unintentionally pits them against each other by pointing out how well-behaved Canada is in comparison. Poor Mattie didn't ask to be involved in any of this drama. This entire time, he's writing to Francis, begging for help. Alfred's probably in a sorry state at this point because civil wars (because that's what revolutions are) are really tough on the body of a Nation, and the economy still sucked as well.
It was also a civil war on Arthur's part, which would have caused him trouble in turn, which is important to remember.
Help does finally come. France enters the war in 1778, and he saves Alfred from London. Matthew stays behind because, again, it really has nothing to do with him. He's seen how crazy Arthur is acting, he doesn't want his ire to turn to him for getting involved. He supports Alfred getting out of the house, though, and might even cover for him during the escape. Francis smuggles Alfred out of England and they sail to America. Francis is traveling as a representative of France, and introduces Alfred and the idea of NPs to the Continental Congress. For all that Alfred is angry with his father for the treatment, I think that once he gets back to America and sees what is happening, the entire thing becomes very real to him. All his pain is from his nation trying to sever with his father's, the man he has been at the side of for 170 years. This man who he loved so desperately, who then went and put Alfred up on a shelf to gather dust for seemingly no reason.
("I get that it was complicated, and it was nuanced, even if it was objectively wrong. And you hurt me worse than anything else has, because I loved you so much. I loved you, and you were all that I wanted, and I thought you were wicked and evil.")
So, there. The revolution plays out, the fighting comes to an end, and a treaty is signed. Arthur and Alfred have gotten to the point of hating each other (much more intensely than they do in the Lions Den, btw). Alfred gets disowned at the Treaty of Paris 2, and Francis helps him adjust to his new life until the French Revolution demands more of his attention. Matthew is sad by all that has happened, but he's glad that it is over, and that Alfred has gotten about of his terrible situation.
The thing is, when England loses all that influence they had from the 13 Colonies (much more populated than New France had been), it clears Arthur's brain a little. It's not instant, and it hardly helps. It helps his treatment of Matthew, but Alfred is so betrayed by all that has happened than he is constantly antagonistic with Arthur. Imagine how this feels to be Arthur, who literally brought Alfred into this world for unconditional love, to have his son spit in his face like that. Arthur fucked up and all of his actions can't be blamed on his illness, but still. And England goes on to take over more of the world, so he'd become more unfeeling again after not too long anyway.
Everything After
As you can imagine, the War of 1812 in this universe is a shit show. Funnily enough, it takes DONI Alfred and Arthur much longer to achieve a shaky peace than they do in the Lions Den. I won't spoil that, though, because we haven't gotten there yet >:). Alfred is much more hesitant to ally with England during WWI than he is in the LD verse, but by this point, I think Arthur has entered his "I've made the greatest mistake of my life" era of thinking about Alfred. This is what leads to their Blitz-era drunken conversation where he apologizes, and Alfred very hesitantly accepts it. He doesn't really, though, evident by how they don't become a unit again until 2022. Oh, and Arthur and Francis get together in the 50s. That's important too.
It takes going through his own version of the empire crazies after WWII that he's able to put into perspective what his father might have been going through at the time. As he says, it doesn't absolve Arthur of his guilt, but it adds a nuance to the situation he hadn't seen before. Matthew arranges their first "family" Christmas in 2001 because Alfred had been going through a tough time (*cough cough I wonder why*) and they go on having awkward coworker-level holiday get togethers for 20 years (its only Alfred and Arthur making it awkward) until the Gemini Report gets their heads out of their asses. Matthew is on good terms with Arthur by this point because they've been through a lot together after Arthur mellowed out during the world wars.
Concerning Alfred's comment about not having a good relationship with Matthew until after Canada became self-governing in 1867--this is another difference between the DONI and LD. It takes Alfred a long time to forgive after the war of 1812 (even though he was the aggressor, lmao) because he can't reconcile that Matthew would side with Arthur. LD Alfred and Matthew are able to sort it out much sooner by virtue of... well just go read that if you want to know. It boils down to the fact that Alfred isn't as hotheaded in the LD, and he's more desperate to keep people in his life. DONI Alfred has Francis, so he's slower to reconcile with Matthew because he doesn't necessarily need Matthew. He hates Arthur so much that he doesn't want to have anything to do with Canada until they are not a crown colony anymore. And lets be honest, DONI Matthew doesn't want to forgive Alfred immediately either because Alfred is much much slower to admit that the war was wrong than his LD counterpart.
(It's because he's not suffering from religious psychosis like LD Alfred is, lmao poor guy)
So, yeah. That's what happened. Shoutout to you if you read this entire thing. There's one or two little lines I need to change here and there in the fics I've posted, but they aren't important ones, and this fits wth 99% of whats already been established. I mostly wrote this for me so I know what happened and I don't contradict myself any more than I already have.
I don't know that I'll ever write a fic about any of this (esp with me wanting to do so many other things) which is why I've spelled it all out here, but it might be interesting to do oneshots or something about it. Alfred's two years of the war in London. Meeting Matthew for the first time. Arthur finding his baby. Francis giving parenting advice on the battlefield. Idk let me know!
(There are some aspects of this that Alfred does not know, even today. The biggest part has to do with why he was born, but that's going to be addressed a little in a future chapter. Just keep in mind that just because I'm telling you this doesn't mean all the characters are aware of it)
"In late 1813, emperor Alexander I of Russia offered to mediate peace negotiations between the British and Americans at Saint Petersburg, but the British rejected Russian mediation and never sent a delegation" and you're telling me we could have had RusAme but the British said no? we could have had RusAme in the year of our Lord 1813 but Arthur Kirkland said no?
