Whenever Vox Is Deep In Thought He Has His Voxtech Logo Bouncing Around On His Screen Like The Old Dvd

im so bummed we didnt get more of hawks and tokoyami in nyc in world heroes mission i think abt it all the time

I wonder how bizarre the US-Spanish War was for observers in Europe? like yeah the US has never been 100% truly isolationist, but Alfred has for the most part stayed to his side of the Atlantic (the Pacific is another story…). all I can imagine is just

Arthur, watching Alfred beat Antonio’s ass in 1898: if I had a shilling for every time I went a few decades without seeing my son Alfred and came back to find him grown and changed significantly more quickly than any nation naturally ought to, I’d have two shillings. which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.

love reading about the Great Rapprochement. Arthur spends 1895 to 1915 metaphorically kneeling on the ground going pspspspsps in Alfred’s general direction mostly getting ignored but occasionally getting an increasingly half-hearted “go fuck yourself” in response. it’s fantastic. look at this.

German Ambassador Bernstoff, a shrewd observer, reported in 1911, “The British efforts [to cultivate America] are meeting with a certain return of platonic affection. The old rooted dislike to England is gradually vanishing… But it is not accompanied by any wish to offer anything in return.” In hard diplomatic coin, the Americans took but they did not give. British ministries from Salisbury to Asquith made important concessions of substance and form to the United States. These statesmen gained not alliance nor even true reciprocity, but the elimination of grounds of conflict, occasional and essentially “platonic” or negative support in world politics, and above all a transformation of American attitudes which would pay immense dividends after 1914. While other factors propelled America in the same direction, British policy from 1895 to 1914 was the indispensable element.

I love it. Arthur hasn’t been this nice to Alfred since 1754 and Alfred is completely weirded out and has absolutely no idea what to do with this. so he just keeps being belligerent and Arthur just keeps being nice until eventually Alfred is sitting at a table in Arthur’s garden wondering how the fuck he came to the point where he’s having literal tea parties with the old fucker. 

meanwhile Matthew, Jack, and Eliza are just as weirded out. maybe Matthew less so than Jack and Eliza but like. it’s still really fucking weird when Alfred says things that would get Jack sent to boot camp in the most remote part of the Canadian wilderness and Arthur just smiles. Duncan, Morgan, and Erin are much less surprised, since obviously they remember how much Arthur loved Alfred as a child. on the whole, Duncan thinks it’s funny, Morgan is relieved and pleased, and Erin is utterly disgusted lol. like c’mon, Al, don’t listen to him. he’s so full of shit you know he’s full of shit. 

alas, the end of WW1 proves Erin right and Alfred goes right back to belligerent and aloof (though perhaps not near as much as pre-1895).

RusAme taking hold in my brain despite current events because there's something inherently hilarious about the dynamic being two superpowers -> superpower and a broke ass loser -> a superpower, Yao, and a broke ass loser who thinks he's a superpower.

Alfred and Yao tell Ivan to his face that they've just been really disappointed in him lately because they know he can do better than that and he's never been so offended in his life. Ivan got kicked to the curb for Yao as Alfred's most important rival and he can't handle it.

Seriously Alfred and Yao having the time of their lives shooting down balloons and antagonizing each other and the moment Ivan comes up they're just "excuse me sir but you must have at least this much money to play with the big boys."

why do i have to wake up

the happy treason day tweets on july 4th are ok tho

Arthur on Drunk History recounting Alfred’s story from when he found him all the way to American independence.

that's basically what that old scene of Arthur and Alfred going out for drinks and Arthur getting sloshed af was.

I'm having some very cute and amusing mental images of drunk Arthur describing Alfred as a baby though. he gets very teary-eyed, whether he's talking about how cute Alfred was or about how he had a terribly inconvenient habit of frequently dying from plague and whatnot or how proud Arthur was when Alfred started actually putting on weight and growing. it's just a 20-minute segment of Arthur tearily gushing about how smart and cute his baby was and the actors just have to improvise on how the fuck they're going to act it out onscreen; baby Alfred is played by a grown adult who keeps doing overdramatic swooning and falling to the ground every time Arthur describes a death. there's a witch that appears, somehow, but Arthur doesn't go into detail so the actor is just ?????? Ominous witch onscreen for zero discernible reason.

the rest of the episode is also fun but the baby segment becomes particularly infamous because it's just so fucking ridiculous.

These three get shoved into a room together, which one comes out alive? ( spoiler alert, they all SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY, have the same energy) these motherfuckers are their own breed

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I see Alfred as being more informed by his interactions with his states, sometimes cities, and also with Indigenous nations.

This is not to say that his interactions with European nations are unimportant especially his interactions with Arthur, Francis, or Ivan.

But when I look at US history, I understand the creation of the US as:

1. An agreement of states, who viewed themselves more of as nations, to form the United States. Before he can even begin to try and sway Francis to helping him in his revolution, he needs to convince his states to join him first, and not all of them were eager for Revolution. Especially given the fact, these British colonies operated differently from one another and were culturally distinct because they operated under salutary neglect (AKA Arthur wasn’t super present cause he was constantly getting involved in wars & was cash-strapped)

2. The US being a settler colonial state used war against Indigenous nations to expand its borders through violence.

I find this second point is lost on the fandom especially in narratives regarding American expansion, but also the American Revolution. It always irks me a bit to see the American Revolution as describes as Alfred’s first war, when it wouldn’t have been, especially if you are assuming he’s existed prior to the revolution. There were many different wars even prior to the revolution with Indigenous nations involved.

There were also many European wars with North American theaters — the French and Indian War which is the Seven Year’s War was the precursor to the revolution. Actually lol the amount of European wars with North American theaters did influence this push for isolationism (as in from Europe) following the revolution.

Anyways this confusing ramble is to say, I find the overemphasis on Alfred’s relationship to European nations like Arthur, or Francis, tends to gloss over the settler-colonial violence in North America due to European colonization. Also I find ignoring, or stating Alfred’s first war as being the revolution a bit…icky ? In the sense that it’s like people do not seem to view Indigenous nations as sovereign of the settler colonial state thus they’re not viewing the wars between indigenous nations and the settler colonial state as not being “true” wars as they view wars between the US & European nations.

I also find the fandom tends to just generalize the US as being broadly English in nature, and fails to further examine regional English identities that but also non-English identities that later come form various different cultural groups in different US states. And idk this also leads me into another conversation of why I’m not a fan of like putting a lot of different identities especially marginalized ones into Alfred’s character but that opens another can of worms that I do not wish to open right now LOL.

also this goes without saying, but im not saying you have to agree with me, nor am I saying if you never had this thought you’re like bad or whatever, I’m just stating my views lol