#but guess what. it is a misogyny issue. but also it’s not at the fault of all men

[anachronistic-falsehood]

leans into the mic. "saying all men are trash in response to the various ccs getting outed as abusers is the wrong move and will harm male victims of abuse and sa" and "the reason these male ccs were able to abuse people and cover it up for so long is because of rampant misogyny in the content creating space and it's important to listen to the women coming out with their stories right now" are statements that coexist. btw

#whiskey yelling into the void #i’ve just seen a lot of people saying shit like ‘men suck’ and ‘it’s always men’ #as well as other people saying ‘this has nothing to do with misogyny!! it’s just a content creator issue not a gender issue!!’ #but guess what. it is a misogyny issue. but also it’s not at the fault of all men #these statements are both true. #we can acknowledge the horrible misogyny in this community AND avoid villainizing men in general #you don’t have to put men down to lift women up #and you ALSO don’t need to lift your fav male creators up over the victims just bc ur afraid ur favourite white boy will get criticized

[golbrocklovely]

im pretty sure we've talked about this multiple times before and no hate to the girl this is probably just me being insecure about myself but honestly im not even surprised about the girl colby is dating clearly shes had some plastic surgery done but i was really rooting for him to be dating a girl that's natural and it sucks to see all this plastic surgery on social media. it seems like the only girls guys date on here are the same body type; big boobs, big butt, small waist.. i guess i just wish there was more natural body representation if that makes sense

i've said my stance on this a number of times but i'll say it again just to make it a bit clearer.

while i understand why you might think this way, bc genuinely i've been in your shoes before, allow me to explain why i don't think like this anymore.

i wrote way too much so i'm sorry in advance lol

this is the first time, ever, that colby has admitted to dating a specific girl. we've seen some that we can guess he was with, or maybe had something going on there, but no actual full on confirmations. so there is really nothing to base malia off of.

we don't know what colby's type is. i know a lot of ppl think they have an idea but reality is we don't know bc we're not colby/we don't know him like that. he has been with a lot of different girls over the years and none of them are similar in anyway, body wise.

now, i know you're not trying to say this, but how your statement comes across is us vs them. or really "anyone that's gotten work done is lesser than those that haven't." bc if there really was no difference between someone that hasn't had work vs someone who has, you wouldn't be talking about this at all. you turn plastic surgery into a negative when in a lot of ways it can be positive.

but that's not to negate the negative effects society has place on women to look a certain way and thus the absolute rise in plastic surgery, fillers, and botox over the years. societal standards of beauty are bullshit and misogyny harms all of us.

i do have to ask, or just raise the question of… do you feel this same way about katelyn? or kat even? bc they were both skinny, pretty, dark haired girls that sam dated/is dating. and yet, you aren't asking him to date a more "natural" shaped woman. i just wanna know why colby has to be the exception. i'm also sure you know men in your own life who have types. do you call them out for only dating those types? just wondering.

i'm saying this as someone who has been in your exact shoes years ago. when i first got into the fandom, i genuinely was upset at colby for his dating habits and felt like he would never date someone that looked like me and that also led to me not ever feeling like i could be reposted by them for merch pics, bc bodies like mine just aren't as accepted.

but i need to make it abundantly clear: you have to stop relying on snc to make you love yourself. and i mean that in the nicest way possible.

snc are two random guys who most likely don't know who you are. you cannot rely on them to bring your self esteem up or to make you feel worthy of love. you have to do internal work and find a way to love yourself regardless of others, bc at the end of the day - you only have yourself.

i love snc, truly, but i don't give a rat's ass if they would find me hot. i find me hot. and that's all that matters. anyone that doesn't find me hot… that's their loss. bc i'm cute, have a big ass, and i'm funny.

10s across the board if you ask me lol

but to bring it back to snc, or colby specifically, the amount of insecurities i have towards myself were not his fault. he was not the one that made me feel like shit about myself, so i cannot take it out on him to try and fix me. he is one person with his own set of issues, who doesn't know i exist. and while it's easier to blame him and wish he was the one stand out, wattpad bf i wish he could be, reality is he too probably also likes a woman with big tits and a big ass. and there ain't nothing wrong with that, since he probably ALSO likes a girl with a personality too. bc fun fact, women with big tits and ass can also have a nice personality.

i'm not saying any of this to be mean to you genuinely. i get your thought process and feelings 100%. i just think you are placing a lot of your frustration on the wrong person. society as a whole is to blame for why you and i don't like ourselves. if anything, colby has helped me like myself more. i think we should try not to let his personal choices feel like a strike against us, if that makes any sense. he isn't dating someone like malia out of spite bc of plus size/natural body type fans. he's dating her bc he loves her, bc he found someone that makes him open up for the first time in a long time. and that should be celebrated, rather than shot down.

#ask #personal #cb ll

[tollundmen]

les mis stage show thoughts (as promised) (it’s long) (and unedited)

Lost the playbill so I can’t credit the actors by name but Valjean and Eponine both had incredible voices

Before Valjean goes into Digne, he passes by Petit Gervais and steals the coin. Nice little easter egg that I could annoy my sister by pointing out

I’d forgotten how overtly Christian the musical is. Like, Jesus references everywhere. I guess this element is present in the book and all adaptations, but I think the musical lacks depth and complexity in its religious metaphors since it effectively cuts out the social commentary. Not begrudging the musical of this—I think in order to make an entertaining musical you’re going to cut out Hugo’s polemics—but still an observation. 

What Have They Done To My Girl Fantine

^^This is one of two major complaints I have with the musical. Obviously, Hugo’s writing is riddled with strange misogyny, both unique to him and typical of his time. However, I’d argue he does try to portray his women sympathetically. Despite the ultimate message of lower-class women as victims of upper-class male society, the book’s Fantine does have agency. She is desperately trying to life a live free from the patriarchal realities of her day. The musical robs her of this agency. I may be misremembering, but I don’t believe the foreman wants to fuck her in the book, and I don’t think that builds resentment between her and her coworkers. You could maybe argue that this relationship between her and the foreman takes the narrative place of her relationship with Thomolyes, but I don’t think that’s a strong argument. I dislike how involved and kind she is with Valjean. I think it’s crucial to his relationship with Cosette that Fantine is effectively a stranger to him. I also dislike how she leads Valjean to heaven at the end of the musical. Again, I think it weakens her character because she becomes a supporting character to Valjean. But I digress.

Also I still think it’s weird to reverse Fantine’s descent into prostitution and the Fauchelevant cart incident. Not that problematic, just weird.

Who Am I is a great song though. Like watching it happen onstage is just fantastic. I adore a scene where you can see the characters running through time and space. It’s one of those scenes that can only happen in musicals, I think. Just super cool.

I wish it was insinuated in the musical that Javert’s appearance killed Fantine. But the choreography with Javert and Valjean during The Confrontation is sick as fuck. During this production, they did stuff with a chain.

I forget how valverty the musical is

The woman behind me kept laughing really loud at the Thenardiers. I forgot where the homophobic line is so I was distracted during those parts instead and forgot to laugh.

Mdme Thenardier is an interesting character because her writing is like sooooo misogynistic, dude. Not the musical’s fault here, though.

Little Cosette was cute.

Political background of the musical is not really explained at all. The audience is just expected to know about the June Rebellion and General Lamarque. Didn’t realize this until my mom asked me about it afterward (unfortunately I’ve developed a reputation for knowing things like this… not sure how). But now that I think about it, Les Amis and the barricade does seem super random. I think this has to do with nearly completely cutting out the whole class struggle part of Hugo’s Les Mis—or at least skimming over it or making it comedic. Pretty hard to cut it out completely. Honestly, I think the playbills should just come with a brief overview of French political turmoil at that time & that could solve a lot of issues. 

Actor who played Grantaire was a good actor (maybe I was just highly attuned to him, though). All of his movement seemed to circle around Enjolras. He played the part of the cynic really well. I’ve read some other people’s reviews of the current US Tour that have said they’d heard Grantaire picked up inspiration from fic, and I could definitely see it here. Not just the whole Enjolras thing, but because he took a lot of care of Gavroche during the whole show. Maybe that’s an established stage Grantaire role, but I still enjoyed observing it. 

But Maybe I Just Love Gavroche

However, What Have They Done To My Girl Eponine

^^This is my second major complaint with the musical. Reread everything I said for Fantine. The musical completely replaces her class struggle plot line with a romantic struggle plot line with some class difference undertones. Idk. I wish her relationship with Marius was explored differently, is all. She becomes an underutilized supporting character for Marius. 

However, On My Own goes hard. I already mentioned that her actor just had a fantastic voice. She was incredibly talented, and I really wish I still had that playbill.

Where the fuck does Marius comes from? I didn’t realize that in the musical this is not explained at all anywhere. He’s just some random dude until he and Cosette have this lavish upper-class wedding. Kinda funny.

I also think it’s funny how politically involved musical Marius is. He’s not a loser at all! Poor guy. He’s noble and stuff. What a chore.

Drink With Me fucks incredibly (except the second part where Marius gets all sad and stuff). Grantaire put his everything into his lines—delivered with such vitriol toward Enjolras, but I have to give credit to Enjolras’s actor for displaying such complicated emotions toward Grantaire in their little stage time together. You could tell he cared for Grantaire deeply. They have several moments where they pressed heads together, shared long, meaningful looks, etc. Nice to see. 

Bring Him Home was delivered so so well, but I can’t help but laugh a lil. His ass does not see him as the son he never had. 

Woman behind me was WEEPING when Gavroche died.

The lighting during the barricade was absolutely incredible. 

Grantaire was the last to die, and he did so in the same position as Enjolras had a few moments ago. The also pointed/saluted each other a lot. Again, nice easter eggs for those of us who Know. also he never touched a gun during the whole show. I think he’s handed one once but quickly passes it off. nice touch.

The staging during the sewers part was super cool. There was a projection on the back wall of the stage that moved and really created the illusion that Valjean and Marius are trudging through this long tunnel.

The rest of the musical I didn’t have much to say. I already said my piece on Fantine/Valjean. 

To love another person is to see the face of God does kinda kill me right in my heart though (good way) (almost joined the woman behind me in tears)

#les miserables #les mis us tour #also i was like way in the back and without my glasses so i couldn't see great #don't ask me what anyone looked like i have no clue

[menalez]

this is something that i've been trying to understand for a while from a curiosity-driven standpoint, and i was wondering what your thoughts are on it. this is specific to american politics most likely. why do you think "leftists" - like TRAs, libfems, male leftists, etc,- target white women in a way that isn't about racism but is about sex? i'm not at all talking about legitimate issues with racist behavior. more like the ideas that white women are even worse than white men at every ism which has become super popular. white men seem to be not brought up anymore, or any men at all. and i'm trying to figure out who sort of started this pseudo-activist thing? because it delegitimizes actual critiques of racism from white women, and has eclipsed critiques of racism and grown into something a lot different imo. i feel it isn't the best word because i don't want to put a "victim" or "delicate/fragile" slant on this, but i guess white women are the scapegoats to white men in leftist spaces and everyone's going along with it? i'm trying to understand how "progressives" got to this point. again not talking about condemning racism from white women (absolutely needed and shouldn't be policed) i hope you get what i'm trying to say. like why do you think this came about and who benefits from it?

tbh to me it’s because anti-feminist rhetoric has subtly become more accepted and normalised + white men still have power and have successfully moved the target from them and avoided all accountability by arguing it’s their white moms’ and other white womens’ faults that they did what they did. they’ve coopted woc not having much voice and facing racism and often even misogyny from white women and use it to justify their misogyny, as if white men are somehow better. also every oppressed group, such as women in this case, are held to higher standards from my experience. when you’re a woman, you don’t get away with what men get away with. it’s the same reason why black women, or lesbians, or other woc, etc are all held to far higher standards. when lizzo used a questionable / “problematic” word, she was treated far more harshly & with far more contempt than a white man or even white woman would. when ellen got called out for not treating her celeb guests well, she was cancelled in a way straight white men criticised for sexually harassing, abusing, or otherwise harming their female coworkers haven’t been. when azealia banks was being racist, she was criticised for it in a far harsher way than for example iggy azealia was. the examples are endless but the point is, minority groups especially when they’re women get held to different standards. somehow people only think it’s a problem when they see a black woman or a lesbian or even het white women do it. look at how “terf” vs simply “transphobe” (who are the ones actually being the population that commit hate crimes against trans ppl) are treated. people love to pretend that they hold others accountable but white men don’t get this treatment. men in general often don’t get this treatment.

this isn’t so say white women haven’t played a role in upholding white supremacy and racism, but to act like they’re the main instigators or like they’re worse than white men is a joke. white men are white women’s oppressors, and white men have been the “patriarchs” and the leaders of countless hate movements against LGB people, women, and poc. to remove accountability from them is to justify them and it is honestly pretty misogynistic. it sucks bc this conversation was started by woc & even poc in general to speak about how white women played a role in racism against us, and now it’s been coopted by white men as a way of dodging their role in racism as well.

#anonymous

[sharinganbitch]

This is hardly an unpopular opinion in the general naruto fandom, but it might rub the tumblr naruto fandom the wrong way. But people take naruto (the series) waaayyyyy too seriously when it really isn’t that deep. It’s a shonen, the target audience is kids. People criticize characters, when they should be criticizing writing decisions made by creators instead.

What I mean is, the reason no one took care of Naruto isn’t because hiruzen or jiraiya or kakashi failed him and were terrible adults. The reason is because Kishimoto wanted to give Naruto a tragic backstory. And that’s it, plain and simple. The reason sasuke’s family was killed and he was alone? Also not actually the fault of itachi or hiruzen or danzo. It’s also because Kishimoto wanted to give sasuke a tragic backstory to be a foil to Naruto. These characters, the world, the shinobi system, none of it is real. It’s a story.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not angry at people analyzing any of these things. It’s genuinely fun to think about these characters and the world as if it were real, and to make it “that deep.” But the fact people get in genuine arguments over these characters and try to apply a very tumblr-level understanding of politics to this fictional world…. Just makes me scratch my head. None of it is real. None of it matters. But the way you treat real life people, that does matter and it does reflect on the quality of your character

oh, i totally agree. i'm definitely someone who loves to think and talk about naruto meta, analyze characters, etc., but there's for sure a place where you have to draw lines and there is a need to recognize that at the end of the day we're talking about an anime geared toward children. that said, i think that there are serious real-world issues that impact this fandom—like all fandoms—such as racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc, and that it's okay to want to talk about those things. i do agree that certain subjects or criticisms can be taken too far at times—shipping in particular—especially when it comes to people being intentionally hurtful. i'm probably not phrasing this the way that i really want to because i'm sick and brain foggy today but i guess it boils down to this: talking about/analyzing/criticizing/whatever stories is a good thing, it's one of my favorite parts of being human, but it's also important to remember that we're all real people too, and a fictional world will never be more important than someone's wellbeing. but also, like...this is all just on the computer. we can all quit out of tumblr or turn our computers off if we need a break from this!

#i take naruto too seriously tbh #like. i know where to draw the line i think. but i'm also very hyperfixation-y about it #naruto fandom critical

[ekho-ekho-ekho]

no disrespect to cat lovers, but y’all can write all the six-page essays you want about how preferring dogs to cats is a sign of boundary issues/controlling behavior/self-entitlement and how if people just entertained their cats and learned to read their body language, they’d earn said cat’s affection and it would stop drawing blood. . . .

but I hope y’all have an answer ready when someone asks, “And what about when the cat draws blood while showing affection?” because otherwise, it takes y’all less than twenty seconds to start talking like an abused spouse.

“He doesn’t do that!”

“What ‘cuts’?”

“Oh, these cuts? Haha! That was an accident! We were just playing!”

“Well . . . yeah, okay, so maybe he does ‘draw blood’ on a ‘regular basis.’ But it’s not that bad!”

“Wha—so what if he’s literally digging his claws into my bare thigh right now? He’s just making biscuits! It’s how he shows love!”

“Look, if the couch gets stained red the couch gets stained red. Maybe that’s MY fault for not having a red couch in the first place!”

“Well maybe you just don’t understand him! You ever think of that? Maybe you don’t know him like I do!”

look, I’m sure some people to some extent disdain cats because they “expect them to act like dogs,” but it’s not exactly fair to treat that as indicative of some moral failing. first of all, if you're used to cats and prefer them to dogs, is it because you “expect dogs to act like cats”?

put it this way: one of my friends has a dog that likes to put peoples’ arms in his mouth. doesn’t bite down or anything. he just gets excited and places his mouth around your forearm.

so we have to warn new friends, “Hey Rocky’s gonna want to lightly chew on you but it’s not aggressive, he’s just very stoked.” because some people get (understandably) freaked out when they think a largeish dog is trying to bite them. maybe this new person has childhood dog trauma. maybe they’re just not used to dogs in general. whatever the case, if you’re uncomfortable, any responsible dog owner will do their best to distract the dog until it calms down.

so, say you grew up with cats and then meet a dog like Rocky, and say he greets you by engulfing your wrist in his maw, and say nobody warned you about this or steps forward to help, and in fact scoffs at you for not being able to tell the difference between “playing” and “attacking”—in other words, say they reacted the same way many cat owners react to their cat “just playing” with a guest’s bare feet. would you be upset?

would you be upset because you fully expected the dog to quietly sidle up and rub himself against your leg?

or would you simply prefer not to interact with an animal that’s behaving in an unpredictable way while putting its teeth on your skin?

look, OBVIOUSLY there isn’t any excuse to go around harming cats on purpose. OBVIOUSLY if you’re going to own a cat, you should familiarize yourself with cat behavior. and OBVIOUSLY some people don’t even try.

and that brings me to my second point, which is that those people just aren’t good pet owners.

correct me if I’m wrong, but I would guess that someone who gets a cat and makes no effort to understand its needs (much less meet them) is equally likely to keep a betta fish in an unfiltered bowl. or for that matter, a dog chained up in the yard year-round.

and yeah, sure, that kind of behavior could imply that person also sucks in other ways. OR! it could mean that they didn’t do their research because they don’t know what they don’t know. which most people don’t until they do.

just—Occam’s Razor: What’s more straightforward?

a person preferring dogs to cats because they feel dogs are less likely to harm them by accident?

or a person preferring dogs to cats because of their cultural/philosophical stance on the concept of free will or, idk, internalized misogyny or something?

TL;DR: .....it’s not that deep, fam

#cats vs dogs #I see these essays floating around every few years trying to pathologize cat-dislikers and istg the 'internalized misogyny' one was real #like circa 2016 mind you but they're always way longer than necessary #for the record I don't even hate cats I've just had enough bad experiences that I don't *trust* them #also for the record the 'cat lover impression' is based on actual conversations I have with my friends who own cats. don't @me #'how dare you move him from your lap!' 'well I don't want him to scratch me.' 'he doesn't scratch!' 'he scratched you ten minutes ago.' #'that wasn't scratching!' 'you yelled OW! and had to get the first aid kit.' 'he was playing!' 'were his claws out?' '...yeah.' #'did they break skin?' '..........yeah.' #'so he scratched you.' #'............well okay sure I GUESS! but only in the literal sense!' #(oh also guess I should add) #abuse mention

[the-good-bad-truth]

I want to dive deeper into the toxicity of rock genre. There is nothing wrong with liking 1 genre or even having an opinion. However, there is a line b/w having music preferences and constantly hating an artist(s) or genre just because it's not what u listen to. There's been fans or even bands themselves who will hate on someone for wearing band merch. I can understand why their defensive especially if the person wearing it doesn't know the band and wearing it cuz it looks cool but is it a bad thing. The artist, Yungblud, who I think is actually underrated gets hated cause he paints his nails, is open about his sexuality and wears skirts. I guess it has to do with the misogyny, homophobia and toxic masculinity within this genre. In the 80s, most of the men would wear makeup, fishnets and also paint their nails but we're seen as hot. The big names in rock also like to play the blame game. I think it was Gene Simmons who said rock was dead cuz of fans. He is right that people can found ways to listen to music w/out paying. But does he expect his fans who most likely need to pay bills to pay for $200+ tickets/merch or another remastered greatest hits album. Is it the fans fault for artists getting paid less or the labels/streaming services that cheat the artist. Its also like he and many already popular rock bands aren't really suffering financially from streaming cuz they already rich. If anything it's smaller artist that have to find new ways of promoting and building a strong fanbase. I think this is what bands can learn from younger bands cuz I don't think older bands were able to build a close bond with fans like the newer artist have. I saw a comment saying if anyone actually liked mgk music then there losers or something like that. So ur saying that a 15 yr old who is struggling with anxiety or a 30 year old who got sober with the help of mgks music is a loser. Corey Taylor is known as Slipknots frontman but to rock media he is the guy whose opinion is seen as "law" in rock. I've seen videos where he talked about how he hates or made "jokes" about pop/ hip hop music, mgk, to cd cases to comparing imagine dragons to the new Nickelback. I think it's weird and maybe he's not totally to blame but it's like u really want to be known as the guy who hates everything and complains that rock is not original but won't allow artist to be original because then their try hard or posers. He's not the only one that does this, there are many others who criticize new artists. In stranger things, they used "Master of puppets" by Metallica and ST fans used it in TikToks but Metallica fans were upset. I didn't see what the issue was because doesn't it help the band. I think that new alternative music is original cuz artists are blending genres or adding their own twist on the older rock. You have Post Malone, mgk, juice wrld, Yungblud who combined Linkin park, blink 182, and rap/hip hop together. You also have more female artists like Halsey, siickbrain, Nessa, Billie eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Halestorm. They call new rock not real music or that it's just cheesy lyrics but wasn't a majority of 80s bands like Poison, Kiss, Motley crue songs about girls, sex and parties. Those lyrics weren't exactly relatable but they were great because those fans wanted music to have fun to and the bands provided the larger then life, crazy, fast paced lifestyle their fans dreamed of. You can take every genre and see why people would gravitate towards it whether it's cuz of the vibe or energy it creates, relatable lyrics, or it just sounds good. That's why this new music is perfect cuz it isn't really about who can wear merch or who slept with the most girls or parties the hardest but instead it's about being who you want to be w/out being judged, having a good time even when your having a bad time in your mind. In a way, rock is still an escape for people who wanted to take a breather from their problems and worries and just enjoy music.

#toxic #music #rock music #gatekeep #fans #yungblud #mgk #KISS #old vs new #hollywood #opinon #hate #young generation #pop punk #maneskin #greeta van fleet #travis barker #billie eilish #metallica

[sorin-sunchild]

The fact is I don't necessarily not agree that 'transandrophobia' is a not a great term. I don't necessarily not agree that many who use it are not good at making sure they're not being transmisogynistic or more careful with their phrasing. I don't necessarily not agree that people have said some wild shit that just isn't true and then used that tag. I don't necessarily not agree that 'transphobia' encompasses much of what is being talked about as 'transandrophobia'. I just think that there's a lot of bad faith interpretations of those who use that tag and a great deal of unfair 'shushing' as if there aren't any issues that specifically target trans masc's when there are.

I might start using 'Antitransmasc' and derivatives though. I personally don't want to be associated with a word that people see as indicating I'm a transmisogynist when I'm not, even if I disagree with their assessment that 'uses transandrophobia = hates trans women'. I'm a coward who doesn't want everything I say discarded by a huge group of people because of a single word I choose to use to describe something.

'Antitransmasc' feels...closer to the intended meaning anyway? Clearer somehow? Focusing on the trans masc bit? Like I know that it's supposed to be transandro-phobia not trans-androphobia but that's not the way it's often read so of course it's being interpreted wrong.

The 'intended meaning' of course is just to highlight experiences that primarily are trans masc issues (the 'lost daughters' and 'lost lesbians' narrative, 'mutilating your perfect feminine body', being convinced you were sexually assaulted and that's why you're trans, being SA'd and often impregnated to emasculate and degender you and any talk which specifically places hatred onto the person for transitioning into manhood/masculinity e.g. 'T makes you ugly and violent', insults about phalloplasty cock, 'zippertits', 'everyone is going to feel unsafe about you now and that's your fault for choosing to transition' etc).

Like to me calling those things simply transphobia indicates all trans people go through those experiences to me, I dunno, that's just how I interpret that word I guess.

Bigotries, prejudice and general hatred towards marginalized groups doesn't always have the same level of impact. It would be stupid to ignore that transmisogy has the biggest impact here. That's because misogyny itself shapes so much of society and how society then decides to view all issues of gender. It's even misogyny (not misandry) which has created 'transandrophobia'. But that doesn't mean that what is happening towards trans people who aren't trans femmes is in some way acceptable, less worthy of being brought up and only talked about to 'one up' or disguise hatred of trans femmes? That's really a stretch in logic and just deeply ignorant.

So yeah, maybe transandrophobia is a bad term but what it describes is real. I think a big issue here is that the tag is full of so much fighting and bad faith from all sides when it should have just been 'this is what happened to me because I'm trans masc' and that's it.

My last note is though that I saw one person cite the inherent transmisogny of 'transandrophobia theorists' because 'they are against the use of tme/tma' and uh yeah sorry that's a stretch because there are valid criticisms of those terms often by nonbinary and intersex individuals who also don't deserve to be ignored so that's maybe not a great reason to cite.

#trans #trans* #transmasc #antitransmasc

[streaming-yn]

Hi, its Grim anon! I was wondering if I could request a platonic bench trio with y/n (she/her) who is very open about her affection for the three (constantly complimenting them, saying ily, etc.), but lately she's been worried that people will take it the wrong way so she's stopped? And now they're like. Where's my Y/N validation? :(

yep yep!! here you go, grim anon! ^^ sorry if I got a bit off track? I'm not sure if I did or not!

platonic!BenchTrio x affectionate!y/n

pronouns: she/her

other information on the reader:

. minor

. very open with her affection

. minecraft streamer

. faceless streamer

. it's against her boundaries for anyone other than friends to use her real name

warnings: sexism/misogyny (ends well, the haters are addressed), idk but the "girl near streamer I like? ew wtf 😒" type of hate (also gets addressed n shut down), little angst, distancing yourself from friends, trying to change yourself, cussing, mention of "weird comments" made towards y/n *ALL OF THESE ISSUES ARE ADDRESSED AND SHUT DOWN THOUGH !!!

form: headcanons

summary: y/n is super openly affectionate with all of her friends! unfortunately, a lot of people think that's a negative thing, though Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo notice y/n's change and get to the bottom of it to fix the issue ^^

genre: platonic, little angst, fluff(?) after it gets found out, hurt to comfort type of deal ^^

abbreviations: s/n -> streamer name, y/n -> your name

note: I'm not very good at angst yet so I'm sorry if it kinda sucks !! :(

you were very in touch with your loving side and showed all your friends affection very openly and however you could

unfortunately, since y'all didn't live near each other that meant that you had to wait for visits for like hugs n stuff :(

at first you didn't think much of it, affection was a normal thing between friends, why do it differently on stream?

you would often tell the boys how much you loved them and we're genuinely happy and grateful that y'all were friends

complements and validation paired with this, naturally

the boys looked forward to streams with you, not only because you where best friends but for the serotonin that your affection brought :D

actually!! on streams with all of you together, it wouldn't be uncommon for tommy, tubbo, and ranboo to playfully fight over your affection

it would be in different ways though, like with Tommy, you would complement either ranboo or tubbo and if you didn't state a name tommy would be like "THAT WAS MENT FOR ME, (TUBBO/RANBOO)" after they thanked you

meanwhile tubbo would either go on about betrayal and how you didn't love him anymore and he's going to run away or he would do something along the lines of ":(( what about meee"

and ranboo, if the compliment wasn't aimed at him, even if you clearly added tommy or tubbo's name at the end, would always reply "thank you" or something similar

however it's different if the compliment is directed at them!

ranboo would thank you, do a small laugh that's half flustered half awkward, and then complement you back (he got less awkward and flustered as he got more used to it though!)

you could hear the smile in tubbo's voice as he loudly thanks you and gives you like 3 compliments in return

tommy, it would depend if either of y'all are streaming or not! yes? "I know" all jokingly cocky like. no? "thank you, I guess" he says it as a half joke, it's a genuine thank you, but he likes keeping it playful so the "I guess" is thrown on, it's random if he gives you a complement back or not, it's literally not even dependant on how he feels, it just at random

also I feel like you and Tommy would have like a "ily!! /p" "ew /j" bit, very often I will add 👍

like while your streaming you like "tommy!! I love you, thank you for being my friend :)" and him, completely disregarding the last bit, would reply "EWW, Y/N YOU DO KNOW IM I MINOR CORRECT??"

if him ever saying ew hurts your feelings then he won't say it, however he will say the rest, unless him deflecting your "ily" makes you feel bad as well, it's fairly easy to crack him to say it back since you're best friends

a lot of back and forth, but not too hard since he never wants to genuinely hurt you

ALSO if you complement him (on stream ofc) he will find a way to turn it around, not onto you, but just turning into something too tame to be labeled and insult but definitely something close!

"I like your sunglasses!!" "oH??? SO YOU DONT LIKE MY EYES??? THANKS S/N"

(also feel like tubbo might do this)

ofc would stop if it makes you sad/uncomfortable/etc

with ranboo though, he might occasionally do that, but it's way more often for you two to get into complementing matches (just going back and forth with complements)

you also sometimes do the "ily more" thing, just because it's funny bc it's like a cringe romance movie thing, y'all never do it on stream though because ppl might make it weird, and some friend quirks are better kept private anyway, just a you two thing :)

occasionally the "no you hang up first" too, except you both play they teen girl waving her hand and saying it the most high pitched voice she can. it's so funny hearing ranboo going so high 💀💀

as a rising streamer, of course you have Twitter, and your subtwt isn't toxic – due to your personality and stuff, the people you attract to your content are all pretty loving and chill! ofc there's a few bad eggs, but that's just what happens, you choose to ignore those few

but since you've gotten more popular, people finding you through your more popular friends, you've seen a rise of tweets mentioning you, whether it be in general or in the boy's replies

you're glad to be getting more popular, now you can find more people who seek comfort from your content, which was your goal when you started anyway! so it's all exciting! ..at first.

rise in people means rise of people in the toxic 1%, and also means rise of haters or people who just don't like you

sometimes you come across tweets like "why does y/n feel the need to be around ranboo, tubbo, and tommy? leave them alone ffs, she got her fame she wanted, she can leave now 🙄✋" and "we get it, girl streamers are less talented so you needed to leech off they boys' talent! like is she done yet or??" or occasional tweets saying something about shipping – which is against not only your boundaries but all of they boys' as well.

the replies being full of "use s/n, using her real name is breaking her boundaries! and if you have an issue, then don't watch the streams she's in, dickhead!", "you could just mute her name on here and not follow her twitch, you're being overdramatic for no reason", "hey hey, remember that s/n checks her indirects", "ew, deactivate", "aw, are you scared bc a girl is better than you at gaming? aw you gonna cry??", etc, makes you feel a bit better, but the punch from the original tweet lingers

after seeing a bit more, you saw the majority of the haters – and weird people – you saw the root of it was probably because you were so affectionate towards you friends and just being around them in general

so, it'd be best to stop, right? don't participate in as many streams, stop being so affectionate in general, to be honest you were already quite anxious that you being so "clingy" was annoying, the hate just solidified it

so you have a plan in line, the hard part is executing it :(

to start, you stopped complimenting them as much on stream, and the late phone calls lessened, and those became more and more noticeable before you "got too busy" to be in as many streams as you used to

I feel like ranboo would notice first and try talking to you before bringing it up to tommy and tubbo, but when you replied "oh! yeah I'm good dw :)" he knew it was a lie and went to the others

"what do you think is going on?" "I'm not sure" "whatever it is, do you think this is why she stopped being so affectionate? I miss it"

then it clicked for tommy while ranboo and tubbo still tried to figure it out

"do you think it's family problems?" "no, last time they has family problems they became more clingy and their phone calls were more frequent, not-" "wait wait wait"

tommy checked your social media platforms, of course they had more followers than before

"what? tommy?" "I think it's more of an online hate problem" tommy leaned back in his chair, running his hands over his face before looking over at the discord call as the two others made sounds of shock, "yeah, this started after her platform got bigger and she got more well known" "..you're right" "how- how do we fix it?" "address it on a stream?" "no, no, not yet, I think we should contact y/n first, see if she'll tell us if we're right or not" "I could try? last time I texted her she responded pretty quickly so maybe that still applies?" "yeah, tell us if we're right or not and we'll continue from there"

so ranboo texted you, making sure to form the text to get to the point but not scare you, he knows how anxiety inducing confrontation, especially from friends, can be for you

you didn't know exactly how to respond, would it be better if you lied? or would the truth be better?

after a few times of the "..." appearing and disappearing on ranboo's screen before you message of ",, yeah, that is the reason actually ;; I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I thought it'd be better to just distance myself :(" sent through

the boys on call could hear the frown in ranboo's voice when he sighed and said "oh" "were we right?" "just a second"

ranboo replied to you, reassuring you that you don't don't have to apologize for not telling them and it isn't your fault, making sure to remind you that you can come to either him, tommy, or tubbo whenever you want

"yeah, she got hate, and I guarantee that if we go through her indirects then we'll see what exactly happened, we may have to scroll a bit though" so they searched around on Twitter and found some, then tubbo spoke "do you think she would want to join call so we can figure out what to do to fix this?" "I can text her, though maybe we can more of distract and comfort her tonight? we can talk about the hate and stuff another time" "yeah yeah, I think that's a good idea"

so he texted you to see if you'd like to join the call, you accepted and ended up playing video games with them – mainly Minecraft servers – for a few hours before tommy had you and ranboo (assuming you're in the US or close) sign off to get some sleep (if you're in the UK or close, he had you and tubbo sign off and then signed off himself for some sleep)

the next day you guys hopped back on call to discuss how you guys would fix it, as well as them giving a bunch of positive comments about your affection :)

you guys decided on a serious stream from Tommy's account, it was either tommy or ranboo's account, but you guys chose tommy bc he's not anxious about turning off donos and other things

you guys discussed that the hate you were getting was uncalled for, and the weird comments were to be stopped immediately.

"I think that's everything? y/n, anything else?" "yeah I think that's about it, thank you guys so much!!" "alright, one more thing before we go- chat- chat, if you have an issue with y/n being in our streams just don't watch our streams! if you don't like y/n we don't want you here" "tommyyyy :(( (/pos)" "wait wait!! chat, if anyone asks or is being rude either spread clips on the stream or screenshots of the tweets we posted!! we want to make sure that everyone – even those not watching the stream – are informed!" "alright, bye chat, I better not see any more y/n negativity!!"

there wasn't negativity in chat when you went to check btw :)! it was in emote-only bc they thought it'd be the best thing to do and most of the chat was filled with hearts and other positive emotes! <33

now whenever hate stuff it posted the replies have screenshots of either tommy, tubbo, or ranboo's tweets, links to the VOD, or clips, stating the most important and the tweet is usually taken down within a matter of hours – days sometimes

and after that everything was back to normal!! you started complimenting them again, telling them how much you love them again, etc etc! you even got back into late calls :)

#angst with a happy ending #streamer!y/n #streamer!reader #mcyt x reader #streamer!au #fanfic #headcanon #headcanons #platonic fanfic #platonic tommyinnit x reader #platonic tommy x reader #platonic!reader #platonic x reader #platonic #platonic ranboo x reader #platonic tubbo x reader #tubbo x reader #ranboo x reader #tommy x reader #dsmp x reader #affectionate!reader #affectionate!y/n #affectionate! reader #affectionate! y/n #angst with comfort #comfort #angst #grim anon #requested #asked and answered

[wri0thesley]

omg wait no hold on I just requested overhaul but then I remembered your overhaul thirst post about him pulling a "curing hysteria~" as an excuse and thought I'd request something along that vibe (no oun intended). I think that'd fall under orgasm control, overstim? (hope this is okay!)

hysteria antidote - overhaul x fem!reader (4k)

seeing nothing but the same four walls every day of your life is playing havoc with your brain. overhaul thinks perhaps you're suffering from hysteria. he has the perfect cure for that.

cw: not sfw/minors dni. dark content!!! dubious/non-consent. captive reader. talk of death, blood, etc. medical kink, gloves, fingering, overstimulation, orgasm control. misogyny. mentions of pregnancy/breeding. afab reader, fem pronouns.

[a/n: idk the internet said the 28th of may was his birthday so consider this both a birthday fic and a fic to celebrate 6k followers, sorry that i am gross and horrible but tbh im having a great time <3]

You really don’t think it’s unreasonable for you to be going out of your mind.

Since the Boss was taken ill, and Kai – Overhaul, you remind yourself, though he’s always just a little less sharp with you when you trip over the new name than he is with anyone else – took over leadership of the Shie Hassaikai, you’ve been pretty much stuck indoors.

Considering that you’re pretty sure he only has fond feelings towards maybe three people in the entire world, including you, you guess you ought to feel special about it – but all it actually does is make you feel like a trapped bird, caged and restless. It doesn’t help that all of the other members of the organisation have started being weird around you; people who you’ve known most of your adult life, people who you’ve worked beside and killed beside and done other horrible things beside (for the good of the organisation, of course)--

But now, they look at you like you might break at any moment. They treat you like an invalid. Their brows crease when they see you out and about, quietly murmuring; “Shouldn’t you still be in your room?”, avoiding touching you at all costs. There’s a kind of fear in their eyes, that they’re going to be told off for even speaking to you, that they’re afraid of being caught close to you.

And you know exactly who’s to blame for that.

You’d tried to speak to him about it, once; you’d thought that perhaps he might be amenable to your desire to do something to help the Shie Hassaikai. He’s always wanted to restore them to their former glory, after all! But after you’d let out your little impassioned tirade, his eyebrows had creased over the bird-mask.

“You don’t sound well,” he’d said to you. “Go back to your room. I’ll talk to you about it later.”

You had missed, at the time, that he hadn’t said ‘we’ll talk about it later’. He’d just said ‘I’ll’. When he had come, that is how it had been; the reassurance that he was keeping you safe. That he didn’t want you to be tainted. That he was keeping you well.

Your quirklessness has never been an issue before, but it certainly hasn’t been a boon. Still, for Kai--

“It’s disgusting,” he’d said, agitated by the discussion. You’d stared at his hands, thinking about the destructive power he himself wielded. “Quirks are a curse, and you not having one is just proof you’re not infected.” He’d looked up, golden eyes piercing directly into yours. “I’m going to keep you perfect.”

Overhaul is not a doctor, for all of his talk about illness and disease and plague. You think he could have used his quirk for something meaningful, once; but you also know that his burning curiousity, his disgust of anyone who deems tainted, his utter lack of morality . . . those are all things that would not have been welcomed in the medical profession. So instead, he deals in needles and pills and altering drugs in the underground labyrinth of the compound.

Sterile rooms, with examination tables and scalpels and impersonal, silver-grey equipment. Pill boxes that rattle when he passes them to you and tells you to take three of those a day, one of those, that one has to be taken to with food--

The idea that you won’t take them doesn’t enter his head, and though he has never . . . overhauled someone in front of you, you have walked past other members of the organisation mopping and disinfecting blood and gristle from sterile flooring.

It is better to go along with him, so you take the supplements and the pills and submit to the way he grabs your chin in gloved hands on the doctor’s chair, tipping your face up to shine a light into your eyes and watch your pupils dilate. But inside, you are screaming.

You’re not made to be locked in one room, occasionally allowed out to pace the hallways of the upstairs – never the underground ones, not any more – with restless footsteps and your muscles fizzing with desire to taste fresh air. You’re not made to stare at the same walls and breathe the purified air and think about how empty the compound is, now that Overhaul is in charge of everything--

(Too many knick-knacks attract dust. Pollen allergies act up, if there are too many plants, and he hates hearing people sneeze. Furniture should be easily movable and barren, to assist in the twice-daily cleanings of every room that people walk through.)

But it’s getting too much for you. Suffocating. You feel like you’re choking on air all of the time; you take the pills, because the thought of what he could do to you is terrifying, but sometimes you wonder if perhaps it would be better if you didn’t.

You’d woken up that morning to the sound of rain hitting the high windows in your bedroom, and you had longed to go outside in your thin nightwear and spread your arms and taste the air, smell the rain, feel it hit your body in fat droplets. Your entire being had ached. You’d tried to distract yourself, with what little there was in the barren prison cell that you called a bedroom – but when the door opened at four thirty exactly, and Kai had stood there with his face as impassive as ever, you had not been able to stop yourself.

Hand fastening around his upper arm (you shouldn’t touch him, you know you shouldn’t, but the same four walls are getting to you), you’d begged him;

“I want to go outside.”

If anyone else had touched him like that, they would already be splattered against the walls and floor. But all you get is a furrow of his eyebrows, careful fingers (gloved, of course; the latex against your skin always makes you shudder) pinching at your hand to get you to let go of him.

“No,” he says. “You’ll catch a cold.”

“I don’t care,” you’re petulant, you know, frustration bubbling up in every cell of your body. “If I stay in here for one more day, I will tear myself into pieces.”

“You’re being over-dramatic.”

“Kai—”

“Don’t call me that.” His rebuttal is sharp. “You know I’m doing this for your own good.”

Your face twists into something ugly. Overhaul hates it when you do that; hates the way your brow wrinkles, your mouth moves, your normally lovely face (one of very few he can bear to look at unmasked and not feel as though he is going to get sick from merely breathing the same air of you) marred.

“You’re not,” you hiss at him. “You’re doing this because you’re fucked up! Because you’ve got some weird fucking ideas about what’s clean and what’s unclean, because you’re on a power trip, because you don’t care about other people--” Your voice is pitching and modulating, all of the things that you usually try and keep balled up inside of you spilling out that the floodgates of how unhappy you are is open.

You’re breathing heavy as Overhaul, clearly irked by what you’re saying, tugs at the wrist of one of his surgical gloves. If he’s going to kill you, good – at least it will be better than this, you think, your breath coming in short sharp pants after the outburst.

He lets go. His hands fall to his sides. His golden gaze on you is very level.

“You’re hysterical,” he tells you. An exasperated laugh falls from your mouth.

“Yeah?” You ask him. “Of course I am. Do you know the last time I breathed fresh air?”

“Seven months, two weeks, three days.” He says it without blinking. Your shoulders tense. Has it really been that long? “You haven’t been ill once in that time. The world out there is filthy.”

“It’s normal to get sick,” you try and tell him, but Overhaul is moving forward; past the doorway, and into your room. The door clicks shut behind him, the sound of a lock ominous. You don’t think you’ve ever been alone with Kai in your bedroom.

In the medical examination rooms, sure. In his office. In common areas, back when he was just the boss’ troubled protege and not the boss himself--

His eyebrows twitch in disgust as he notices the dust on your bookshelves. You’d stopped letting any of the cleaners in here a month ago; you’d refused to clean in the mean time, taking whatever small victory against your captor that you could.

“You’ll give yourself respiratory issues,” he says.

“Good,” your voice is cold, but you realise you’ve backed away from him. For all of your attempts to stand up to him, you’re terrified. Everyone knows what he can do. “Better dead than here--”

Gloved fingers around your wrist, so tight you can practically feel them bruising.

“You don’t mean that,” he says. His voice has gotten softer, cajoling. You’re trembling in his grip. “I told you. You’re hysterical.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying,” you say, but your words feel like you’re spitting them out around a mouthful of gravel. “I—I’m calm--”

Your knees knock against your bed, but Overhaul is still clinging to you; still too close. Your heart is beating so fast that you can hear it pounding in your ears.

“You’re not. You’re hysterical.” He repeats it, calmly. The hand not on your wrist reaches up and cups your face, a gloved thumb stroking across your cheek as if you’re the most delicate thing he’s ever touched. The scent of the latex is overwhelming. “But that’s alright. It’s not your fault.” He clicks his tongue behind the mask. “It’s mine. All of this checking for the physical sickness, and I didn’t think about checking your head.”

You fall onto the bed as his knees knock against yours, your back hitting the wall. It’s just a plain, single bed; rumpled sheets, because you’d fought against any attempt for someone to come in and collect your laundry, too. Overhaul looks silly in your room, you think dimly; like a huge black crow in the nest of a small, frightened wren.

“If you fight,” he tells you, “I’ll disassemble you. I’d rather not. I don’t want to taint you by using my quirk. But . . .” He’s sinking to his knees in front of you, those same methodical hands pushing up the skirt of your dress. “If I did, I’d get a blank mind to work with. I won’t hesitate. But I’d still rather simply fix you without having to break you into pieces first.”

You know him too well to think that he’s bluffing.

After all of the vitriol you’ve spat at him, he’s unwilling to kill you. Would it be worse, to be mindless and brainless under Kai’s quirk? You’ve heard some of his failed experiments before; babbling, drooling, broken things. He’s killed them sometimes just to put them out of their misery.

What if he did that, and your mind remained perfectly capable – just utterly unable to communicate with your body? A prisoner in your own skin. Worse than even now. You swallow back the lump of fear.

“H-how are you going to do that?” You ask him.

You start at how cold the gloved fingers are on your bare thighs, as Overhaul pushes them apart. Cold fear prickles down your spine. You’re too scared to fight back, but everything he’s doing is making you want to run.

“Did you know,” Overhaul says, those same hands sliding higher, to tug at the waistband of your underwear. “In the past, there were rumours that doctors would cure hysteria by genital massage and stimulation?”

His words are very clinical, but there’s a thickness to his voice behind the mask that fills you with revulsion.

“It might be nonsense, of course,” he says. Your underwear is being tugged down, pulled around your thighs, your knees, your ankle. “They theorised that the best cure was regular intercourse, male semen, pregnancy and childbirth--”

“Kai—” Your voice is a soft whine, fear-filled. This time, he doesn’t snap at you for calling him by the name he’s left behind. He simply says;

“Spread your legs.”

You don’t want to. But you want to risk what he’s threatening you with even less, so you tearfully open them as wide as you can go. He shifts forward, and the tip of the beaked mask digs into your inner thigh as he studies you like you’re nothing more than a diagram, not a living, breathing person--

“Next time I’ll have lubricant ready,” he says, under his breath, and your heart seizes up at the implication that whatever he’s going to do to you, there’ll be a next time.

You start at the sensation of gloved fingers gently parting the lips of your sex, Overhaul’s golden eyes drinking in the sight of you spread open and bare. You’re shaking, but for some reason the way he’s looking at you – the utter concentration in his eyes – makes a curl of heat flare deep inside of you.

“Don’t,” you breathe, trying not to squirm. “Please--”

“I don’t want to have to,” he says. His tone remains calm, unbothered. “I’m doing it for your own good, you know that. Just helping you along.” One finger slides through the slit; the sensation of the gloves against your most intimate, heated parts makes the muscles in your thighs clench. It’s . . . not exactly unpleasant, but neither it is pleasant. “Do you think I’m getting any pleasure out of this?”

He doesn’t like getting his hands dirty. You know this; everyone knows this. If this particular thought was so unpleasant to him, you don’t doubt he’d have found somebody else to do it (the thought of one of the other members of the Shie Hassaikai doing this to you fills you with even more revulsion than the idea of Overhaul himself). But you can’t say that out loud. Not after what he’s threatened. So you press your lips together and shake your head, gasp dying in your throat as one of Overhaul’s latex-covered fingers prods gently around your opening.

“You’re getting wet,” he tells you, as if you can’t feel the shameful slick beginning to leak from you. “That will make this easier. Good.”

You hate that the praise makes another jolt of arousal go through you. You don’t want to like the feeling of his gloves, rubbing at your heated cunt; the sensation of a fingertip circling around your entrance, brushing the bud of your clit and making you want to clamp your thighs around his hand.

He sinks the tip of one finger inside of you and you jerk, your hips out of your control as you try and sink away from the intrusion. Overhaul clicks his tongue again in annoyance at you. The hand holding the lips of your cunt open moves, to land on your hip and pin you between the bed and the wall so you can’t squirm again.

“I’ll sedate you next time, if I have to,” he says. “I’m not getting anything out of this. I’d prefer not to have to do it at all--”

He’s lying. You know he is. But you can’t call him out for it, so you press your trembling lips together and try to stop tears spilling out from your lash line as the finger inside of you sinks further and further inside, past his first knuckle, right down to the base.

He crooks it inside of you and your hands curl into the bedsheets, nails digging into your palms through cotton. His touch is curious, exploratory; has he ever actually done this to anybody before? He slides over a rough patch inside of you with the latex-tipped finger and a moan escapes your mouth against your will, your head falling back against the wall. Narrowed golden eyes look up at you as he repeats the motion; taking in the gloss of your lips, the widening of your eyes, the way your shoulders are shaking up and down.

You can feel yourself pumping more slick out; helping the glide of his finger inside of you, as he begins to carefully thrust it in and out of you. His touch is made all the more impersonal by the mask obscuring everything but his eyes and eyebrows; you can’t even hear him breathing.

Your cunt is fluttering around him, pleasure swarming you in breathless waves as he withdraws his finger entirely. He lifts the glove to his eyeline, looking only vaguely interested in how the white latex glimmers with your arousal.

“I’m going to use two now,” he tells you – and that is all the warning you get before two fingers beside one another are opening you up, scissoring your tight channel apart with an ache that you feel up to your hips. You bite back the whimper, but you’re unable to stop the choked breaths that are falling from you as he fucks you with them in steady, constant thrusts.

A covered thumb brushes your clit; swollen, now. Sensitive. Standing to attention. Your hips attempt to jerk in his hold once more, a strangled noise that’s neither pleasured nor pain falling from your throat. You’ve touched yourself, of course you have – even recently, just to try and assuage some of the boredom that fills your exactly-the-same days – but Overhaul’s fingers and thumbs and touch on you are so entirely different from that.

He continues his assault over your clit, those same eyes watching you with that same detached, clinical disposition that he’s had most of the time. There’s a cast to them that suggests there’s something more, but whatever emotion – if, indeed, he’s still capable of that – he’s feeling about having you at his mercy in this way has been pushed to the back of his mind as his thumb rolls and pinches at the bud.

Your body goes all-over heat, Overhaul’s fingers still pumping in and out of you, the slick noises of your shaming wetness echoing around the prison of the four walls you’ve spent seven months in. You’re teetering on the edge of something, hot and needy and wanting – and as Overhaul’s thumb sweeps over your poor aching clit again, you tilt your hips forward for as much stimulation as you can--

And he pulls his fingers out of you.

The heat fades into nothingness as you let out a noise of disappointment. Overhaul’s head tilts to one side, considering.

“What do you want?” He asks you. “Say it.”

No. You don’t ‘want’. He’s wrong. You keep your mouth pressed tight now that the damning noise has fallen out of it; you have managed to not let the tears trembling in your eyes spill forth. Your gaze meets his, defiant and tired and afraid all at once.

“Alright,” he sighs. “If you’re going to carry on being difficult.”

He does it again; his fingers plunging into you, scissoring you apart, rubbing against your folds with a practised agility now that he’s done it for the first time. He has always been a fast learner; always been observant. His thumb is back on your clit with ceaseless assault, and all over again you feel heat begin to build up; tension that crawls into every crevice of your being and worms its way deep inside you despite how badly you don’t want this.

The hand holding your hip loosens somewhat, allowing you to messily thrust your hips into Overhaul’s stimulation. You’re torn; you shouldn’t want to hump against the gloved fingers stimulating you, you should be wriggling and squirming away. But it feels so good; even with the skin-tight covering of rubbery latex, Overhaul’s fingers seem to find every one of your weak points and exploit them.

There it is again, building up on you; a ball of tension in your stomach being gradually wound tighter and tighter, threatening to snap at any moment. Your hips flex against his hand, your fingers clenching and unclenching on the bedsheet--

He denies you the peak of your orgasm for the second time.

And a third.

And a fourth.

“Kai--!” You’re too far gone to even think, after the pleasure has been pulled from you so cruelly, over and over again. The tears spill over your cheeks., rolling down in fat, shaming droplets. Overhaul’s eyes narrow.

“No,” he says, vehement – more emotion in his voice than you’ve heard all day. “You know what to call me.”

You know what he wants you to call him. You know that he wants to leave his old name behind, start again, be someone who can drag the Shie Hassaikai out of the shadows and into light and power once again – and he thinks that the name will help. You gurgle out a sobbing, strangled noise;

“O-Overhaul, please--”

Three fingers are plunged as deep inside of you as they can go, crooked to rub against your sweet spot; as Overhaul murmurs, detached but soft;

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

They thrust into you, his thumb rubbing your clit with firm, certain strokes – and this time, as the orgasm rushes up on you all at once, he doesn’t stop. He fucks you with his fingers through it, his thumb not ceasing the circling. Pleasure washes over you, finally, in great waves and crests. You feel yourself gush on his fingers, soaking him in your wetness (his eyebrows furrow again, at how close your fluid comes to spilling over his bared wrist; but you are too relieved to think about anything other than finally getting what you need).

Your hips flex, gasps falling from your mouth with every thrust of them – and you expect Overhaul to pull his fingers out of you. To stop touching you. Perhaps to strip off his gloves and put on a new pair – you know he always carries spares – and sneer at you as he walks out of the room.

But Overhaul’s fingers do not move from inside of you. The fierce rhythm of his fucking and petting and rubbing does not stop, even as the final aftershocks of your orgasm clench loosely about him and his constant stimulation becomes more of an annoyance than anything else on heated, sensitive skin.

You squirm, trying to push your thighs together to get him to stop touching you – but the hand not fucking you forces your thighs to stay parted with the curl of fingers into supple flesh, leaving you helpless to do anything but let him carry on touching you. Carry on fucking you.

A short, sharp shock of an orgasm rips through you as he swirls his thumb over your clit just so, and you realise that you’re drooling down yourself as well as panting; helpless and sloppy, utterly unable to do anything except lie there and take it until Overhaul decides he’s had enough of touching you.

You come, what? Twice more? Thrice? Until the pulsing of your channel is painful, your skin feeling red raw, your whimpers into the ceiling dry and broken. Only then does he pull his fingers out of you with a lewd pop.

A gush of your fluid that his fingers were stoppering soaks your bedsheets, and you watch, dazed, as Overhaul stands up. He looks down at you for just one moment, that stretches unbearably long in the heat-and-sex soaked atmosphere of the room.

He strips his gloves off of his hands, eyebrows twitching in disgust as he leaves the crumpled latex on your bedside table. He’s sliding on another pair as he speaks;

“Feel better?”

No. No, you don’t. You feel worse. You feel disgusted and violated and aching, your body over-stimulated and exhausted, sweat and drool and bodily fluids clinging to your skin. But if you tell Overhaul that--

“Yes,” you say, voice very soft and small and weak. You cannot see his mouth, but you see the way his eyes flash happily, the overall sensation of him smiling.

Why does Overhaul’s smile make you so scared, when Kai’s smile used to just make you feel warm?

“We’ll need to do it a few more times,” he tells you, as your blood runs to ice in your veins. “Such maladies aren’t cured in a day, after all. But . . .” He turns, rearranging himself carefully, his mask readjusted. You can’t see him as he speaks the next words. “I’d like to try some of the other suggested remedies, too.”

You think of his earlier words.

‘They theorised that the best cure was regular intercourse, male semen, pregnancy and childbirth.’

You’re never going to escape, are you? You’re going to be trapped in this compound until the day you die, and Overhaul is going to think that he’s keeping you safe--

“Take a shower,” he says to you, as he opens the door. It is not a suggestion. “And stop not letting the maids come in here to clean. I’m not having you get sick.”

You think he might be the sick one.

#overhaul x reader #yandere overhaul #overhaul smut #overhaul x you #chisaki kai x reader #bnha smut #bnha x reader #dark content for ts #5555 event fic #not sfw text #writing #afab reader #fem pronouns #misogyny for ts #bnha posting #medical kink for ts #non consent for ts #dub con for ts #non con for ts

[bookofmirth]

ok so this might come off as a bit rambly so please bear with me lol

i've noticed that the acotar fandom has this incessant need to be right when it comes to canon and it really sucks out the funness of fandom. shipping is supposed to be fun but when it comes to this fandom, it's almost like a competition to see who will be more right when the books come out. engaging with theories/predictions about characters and the plot is supposed to be exciting but when it comes to this fandom, some of the theories/predictions are problematic at worst and nonsensical at best. like how can you say with your full chest that you're so confident about where the series is heading in the future because of this or that theory when you're stuck in the past and refuse to see what all of the text is telling you in the present. it doesn't make sense. the selective reading is so strong that it has me looking sideways sometimes lol

i guess my question is why do you think the fandom is so divided when it comes to ships right now? i've seen people say this wasn't the case for feysand and nessian, so what's the difference here?

Oh boy Brielle, I have some thoughts on this. It's complex.

To be clear, I am not saying that this applies to literally every single person who ships a certain way. This is a commentary on the fandom as a whole, and there are always exceptions.

This got really, really long, so I'm putting it under the cut.

I think that one of the main draws of this series, and of sjm's writing in general, is her ships. I think that people get very, very attached to their ships.

I also think that sjm does NOT fully think through some of the choices that she makes when writing. See: the way that she takes from all these different cultures and mashes them together, which could be seen as disrespectful of their origin. She has retconned things, like Mor being queer and Lucien being Helion's son. I think that she thoroughly thinks about some of the aspects of her books, like Rhys's reaction to sleeping with Feyre for the first time, but then really half-asses other aspects of her books, like Mor coming out.

Then, we have your good old misogyny and homophobia - people in the fandom don't like Mor because she hurt the poor bat boy's feelings when she didn't sleep with him, and they don't have a mating bond, but she's never really told Azriel "no", and so every single moment of pain that Azriel has felt in 500 years is Morrigan's fault. And Mor's experience as a closeted queer woman who feels unsafe around the people she should trust the most is completely disregarded by the fandom.

Finally, I think that a combination of these factors has created the monster we know as e*riel, and that the fandom is perpetuating its own mythology.

What all of this comes down to, and the real reason I think that the fandom is behaving this way right now, is that e*riel is dead. It's never happened, it's not going to happen, but because we don't have the clear closure we got with moriel (where people would be accused of homophobia for continuing to ship it), people are still trying to figure out any possible way for e*riel to become canon, though every single sign points to it being a non-issue.

This weird thing where people have to be "right" all the time, and the way that "right" = "canon" is a relatively new development. It's as if everyone in this fandom forgot that they are in fact in a fandom, which inherently diverges from canon.

However, I think that the need to cling to canon is because the alternative would be to admit defeat and say "well, even if it doesn't happen I will still ship e*riel, it's fine, I will live with that." But they don't want to do that. In response, they look at canon so hard that they are reading the white space between the letters to create their theories, which as you noted as largely nonsensical and often fail to take into account who the characters are as individuals, how they are connected to other characters, and why it would or wouldn't be appropriate for them to be involved in various plots.

People could say, as eluciens having been saying since day one, "I really ship this thing but I can see that it might not become canon". But they don't say that. They literally refuse to see any other possibility than e*riel becoming canon.

You pointed out that people are stuck in the past - absolutely. The number of reimaginings I have seen of scenes where either Azriel or Elain has literally zero to do with the scene, but people try to shove one or both of them in there. And this from books ago. People are stuck on the Truthteller scene, and refuse to acknowledge that neither of them have acted on their feelings, whatever those might be, for years. And they ignore the fact that once Elain and Az do act, it goes horribly wrong.

Here are the facts as of right now:

ACOSF is the most recent book. In that book, sans extra chapter, those two had no interaction other than looking at one another.

If we include his POV, then he said it was wrong, we got confirmation that nothing has ever happened between them, she returned his necklace. Elain was aroused, but that does not mean she was ready to even have sex. "Yes" to a kiss is not "yes" to every single sexual act Az can think of. They parted on awkward, bad terms after a scene in which it seemed like they were about to start something. Yikes. Unlike Wings and Embers, they did not end that chapter still thinking of one another. After they part ways, the omniscient narrator does not mention Elain, or Az thinking about Elain, again.

His POV occurs months before the end of the book. They do not interact after that.

Elain has a mate she has not rejected, nor accepted.

So anyway, your question was why are people like this. lol. I think the fandom created a monster, and that monster is clinging to life. It can't accept the idea of morphing into a non-canon ship, though it never was canon in the first place. It had just convinced itself that it was.

There are other aspects to this, that have to do with gwynriel and elucien.

Gwynriel is a new ship, it's almost guaranteed to happen, people are super excited to ship it and give Gwyn all their love. I'm sure they would rather create content for that ship than argue about whether or not it's going to be canon, but they are in constant defense mode. Some people honestly didn't like e*riel before because they don't like Elain, or because they don't like Azriel, and those are valid reasons for not liking it. Why people ship gwynriel doesn't matter. The tone of the discussion is, unfortunately, being shaped elsewhere, which I will mention below.

Elucien is an old ship, older than e*riel. I can speak from this perspective - personally, I have been holding my tongue for 4.5 years. I have been letting people live, and just talking about the things I like. Then when acosf came out, it was like I could finally say all the things I had been thinking about Azriel, because I now had proof that the things I thought about his character (and because of that, about e*riel) now had solid canon foundation. This is 4.5 years of me holding in a lot of shit and finally being able to say it. Sometimes yes, I might take joy in having been right.

I think that a few people are clinging to canon, and that sets the tone for the discourse in the fandom. Someone says "according to page whatever, blah blah blah" and people feel the need to respond, and then it turns into and "I'm right" contest instead of... a fandom... A lot of us like debating. To me, it's fun. But when Person A starts a conversation that's about canon and it actually ignores canon, it's hard to let that conversation go by and just keep creating whatever we want to create. Instead, we respond, and so the tone of the conversation is shaped by what Person A decided to say.

I also think that there is a lack of distinction between theories (what will happen in the future) and meta (analysis of what we have now).

There is also a lack of "I" statements. Opinions are being stated as fact.

idk if there is a way to make it better, other than to just go back to ignoring one another. This whole situation makes me want to throw out every single canon ship I like and create exclusively non-canon content, just for spite. Except I really like doing meta, and so I don't want to. I guess for my point, I'll just keep doing meta, keep creating different content, and keep reminding people that they aren't here to continue perpetuating canon, but to play with it.

#ask #gimme-mor #acotar #antielriel #gwynriel #elucien #acotar fandom #fandom things #fandom history

[marley-manson]

Mash for the ask game?

Thank you for asking!

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my:

Favorite character:

Hawkeye, hands down. It's hard to really articulate why actually. I mean obviously there's the gay/gnc jokes taken to such an extreme, and delivered with such a sense of pointed pride in differentiating himself from the average army dude, that it's virtually impossible to read him as straight. There's the anti-establishment vibe that I always latch onto in a character. The pacifism he follows through on - he will not carry a gun in a war zone, he will surrender to any "enemy" soldiers who happen upon him, he will punch Frank in the face but he won't defend himself against someone who doesn't deserve to be hit.

Somewhat unusual for me but I also really adore how open he is about his feelings. I'm used to repressed faves or faves who have to hide behind an image and/or conceal aspects of themselves, and Hawkeye is kind of refreshing in not being like that at all. Like to the point where if the writers don't want Hawkeye to immediately tell everyone what his trauma is for the sake of dramatic effect, they have to give him amnesia.

He's not perfect, sometimes I find him both in character and obnoxious lol, and while I've mildly complained about how the show went about addressing the misogyny of the early seasons and the womanizing, it is still a flaw that fits Hawkeye and that I don't really enjoy lol, but overall he's still one of my all-time favourite characters.

Least Favorite character:

Gotta be Potter I guess, and I won't go too into it bc I've talked about him a lot lol, but yeah in general it's more to do with his role in the narrative and the writing and shifting tone of the show, than with Potter as a "person."

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon):

Hawkeye/Trapper, Hawkeye/BJ, Hawkeye/Frank (hey it's not my fault he's the only guy Hawkeye's made out with on screen), uhhhh Hawkeye/omc lol bc I like the idea of him with someone unconnected to the war, aaaand Hawkeye/Charles. I'm here for the Hawkeye hitting on men show, obviously.

Character I find most attractive:

Margaret, at least for like, the main cast. There are a few incidental nurses around who give her a run for her money though. None of the dudes are attractive to me at all tbh.

Character I would marry:

I... guess I'll go with Kellye.

Character I would be best friends with:

Klinger.

a random thought:

BJ acts out more (tantrums and pranks and psychological torture) the less he's able to rely on thoughts of his future with his family as a coping mechanism and the more he's forced to experience the present due to his emotional attachments to that present, ie Hawkeye, mainly. In a roundabout way he does torment Hawkeye because he likes him too much for comfort - not in an actually gay way, but in a way that's pretty damn easy to put a gay reading on.

An unpopular opinion:

Hmm. I feel like I've already talked about most of my unpopular opinions. I think my take that Hawkeye has genuinely high self-esteem and is relatively well adjusted (imo he still has some issues, just like, different ones, and for the most part directly related to being in a war zone) feels like the most unpopular sometimes lol. My preference for the early seasons too, as well as my take that they're more progressive overall.

Oh one I don't think I've ever said, is that I don't care at all about the actors or behind the scenes stuff or other roles they're in or anything like that. That's always a bit of an unpopular opinion in live action fandoms ime.

My Canon OTP:

The only canon romance that isn't terrible is Klinger/Soon Lee. Wait no, I said it once in some tags: Hawkeye/Treason.

My Non-canon OTP:

Hawkeye/Trapper is the fave but I wouldn't say I have a Mash otp the way I define it.

Most Badass Character:

Klinger. From put-on but not feigned hypercompetency to disarming a dude holding a bunch of people at gunpoint to doing a ton of physical work all in heels, he's clearly the winner.

Most Epic Villain:

The U.S. Army.

Pairing I am not a fan of:

lots lol, I'm picky about ships. Hawkeye/BJ the way it's usually written is the main one bc I want it weird and messed up, not fluffy. Hawkeye/Margaret is probably the most popular ship I can't stand lol. Like I once tried to read an older fic bc the premise was right up my alley and it was really well written and I just couldn't do it bc it featured Hawkeye/Margaret. I can handle like a one night stand or two between them aside from Comrades in Arms as like, backstory, but anything romantic makes me run.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another):

None to any significant extent, but everyone's got a few hiccups here and there. Hawkeye in Commander Pierce imo had some major ooc elements for the sake of Margaret's speech about how he's a hypocrite for hating the army. Radar's wavering characterization made it hard to get invested in him imo, though it's not a huge problem to me. Klinger often being The Dude Who Fucked Something Up in later seasons kinda sucks and while it's not blatantly ooc I don't think it vibes with his early seasons. etc etc.

Actually maybe I'll say Potter, because he could've been an incredible addition to the show if the narrative interrogated his Real Army but also a sweet grandpa thing. The potential for interesting writing there is off the charts and almost wholly unutilized.

Favourite Friendship:

Hawkeye and Margaret. I'm running out of things to say about them lol.

Character I most identify with:

I was actually floored by how much I related to Margaret in certain scenes. It's very unusual for me to emotionally connect to a character lol and I've got 0 in common with Margaret so I can't actually say I identify with her, but oh man they nailed some of her feelings in a way that fucked me up a little.

Character I wish I could be:

None lol. Everyone on this show is miserable and traumatized.

meme

#mash #text post #marley on mash #had to really think about a few of these lol #ask #potter mash #hawkeye mash #bj mash #klinger mash

[lacrimosathedark]

Hamilton Inaccuracies/Corrections (because why not?)

Okay so, I saw a post on reddit that was like, “what’s some inaccuracies in Hamilton off the top of your head?” and I got a whole bunch...and then I had to double check to make sure if I was right...and I’m pretty long-winded...and  now I have this 5,000ish word monstrosity. And apparently you can only post 1000 characters at a time on reddit. Laaaaame. So here’s some Hamilton facts I’ve gathered in my brain. Since it was kinda off the top of my head despite being so long, it’s kinda vague in some places, so if anyone wants to expand on anything (or correct me if I oopsed somewhere) please do! Though nicely please.

Also I am also awful at citing things, but I know I learned some of this from @john-laurens and @ciceroprofacto so thank you.

LET’S BEGIN!

Act 1

Rachel Faucette was not a prostitute, but she was a “whore” in the sense that she did what she fucking wanted with her body. During her first marriage she may or may not have been sleeping around, but she refused to stay with John Lavien, her husband, anymore. So he had her arrested. And he could do that. Because patriarchy and theocracy. And she was essentially put in solitary confinement. You can see why she tried to leave, right? She tried to get their marriage annulled or get a divorce. I forget what the issue was but she couldn’t and eventually she just moved to another island where she met James Hamilton.

The intro song makes it seem like Alexander was an only child. He actually had an older brother, James Jr., but he kinda fucked off after their mother died, working and taking care of himself. They also had an older half-brother Peter Lavien, but I don’t think they really knew him other than as the son of their mother’s abusive ex who took everything from them when she died. John Lavien was able to do that because when Rachel was with James Hamilton, she had not been able to get legally divorced from him so she wasn’t really married to James Hamilton, so James Jr. and Alexander were illegitimate ie bastards. He was an asshole. I don't think Peter had anything against the Hamiltons, but I think he grew up to be a Loyalist so. He actually made some trouble in South Carolina for Henry Laurens, John's dad! But I think I read somewhere he also left money for Alex and James Jr. In his will, which is sweet.

This is more visual since it’s not specified in the song, but in the show, Hamilton’s cousin mimes hanging himself. Peter Lytton’s cause of death if I recall was inconclusive, but he was in his bed and there was a lot of blood. So, yeah, he didn’t hang himself.

Alexander did not punch the bursar. However he did return to Princeton later during the war and blew a canon through the school and apparently decapitated a painting of King George lololol. He was under orders, but yknow. Probably felt pretty good after he was rejected for accelerated courses. He wasn’t the only bastard rejected, though! Ben Franklin’s bastard son was too. The guy in charge of admissions, Witherspoon, hated bastards as a concept and Princeton was a very religious school at the time I believe.

It may have been the plan by Aaron and Esther Burr for Aaron Jr to graduate Princeton, but like, he couldn’t really be sure of that? He was like 2 years old when they died, and his older sister Sally was 4 I believe, maybe 5.

Hercules Mulligan met Alex in 1772. His older brother Hugh knew Alex’s old employer in St. Croix and helped him get to mainland America. Alex and Hercules lived together for a long while, and Hercules is actually who got him interested in the revolution.

John Laurens was in England in 1776. He wouldn’t meet Hamilton and Lafayette until he accepted his post as Washington’s aide-de-camp upon his return in August of 1777.

Lafayette couldn’t have met Hamilton before August 1777 because that’s when he met Washington, and he was appointed as a volunteer to the Continental Army only a week prior, and before that he had been in France. But Lafayette later declared their relationship to be like that of brothers, Alexander his closest connection in the states besides Washington.

Lafayette admired and absolutely adored Laurens and they were besties, but neither of them knew Mulligan. They may have met in passing, or heard about him from Hamilton, but nothing more.

“Lafayette” was actually a nickname based on his title of “Marquis de la Fayette”. In his autobiography, he wrote: “It’s not my fault I was baptized like a Spaniard, with the name of every conceivable saint who might offer me more protection in battle.” I’m glad he thought it was funny at least. His name is Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de la Fayette.

Hercules Mulligan is not known to fuck horses.

The Revolution had already sorta started. Actually, Hercules and Alexander had been part of local militias before 1776.

This is more of a miscommunication since the actors are close in age, though the lyrics try to get it across. There’s a reason Mulligan says he’s got the others “in loco parentis”. In 1776 Hamilton and Lafayette would have been 19, Laurens would have been 22, and Mulligan would have been 36.

I think we all know “Laurens, I like you a lot” does not cover the scope of their relationship but that’s rather self explanatory so unless someone asks I’ll leave it at that. And for other clarifications. But at the very least I’ll share this: Anyone who saw them knew they were like attached at the hip (without knowing how attached *winkwonk*) and you could almost always contact one through the other. Laurens was notoriously bad at answering letters, to Hamilton too (and Alex did bitch about it because he is insecure and needs love), but it became quickly known he got back to Hamilton fastest so people would be like “Tell Laurens I said hi!” or “Hey, I need to get these to Laurens, you send them to him.” Which is hilarious. I just imagine Alexander going, “Why me?”

While all of them are Revolutionaries, Laurens is the only one you could solidly call an abolitionist, and Mulligan’s even shaky on the manumission part. He was supposedly part of the Manumission Society Hamilton helped start, but Mulligan also personally owned slaves and was never known to have freed them (One helped him with spy shit. His name was Cato!). In fairness, Hamilton and Lafayette wholeheartedly agreed with Laurens, and Hamilton was the biggest supporter of his battalion plan, and both of them did try to continue working towards equality after the war, but it was never the top priority for either of them and their lives kinda went to hell, so it fell to the wayside. Lafayette actually did some nifty stuff worth looking at, and Hamilton might have tried to keep one of John Lauren’s freed men from Henry Laurens! But as slavery stuck around for a while, it clearly wasn’t anything significant.

Angelica would meet and befriend Thomas Jefferson in Europe, but she would never manage to convince him to put women in a sequel because he’s a huge misogynist and told her in multiple letters that politics isn’t for women and I think he deserves a shoe up his southern backside. Side note, it always bothered me that Lin played up the misogyny in the musical. I mean, yeah, all of them would be misogynists compared to us, but for their time, Hamilton wasn’t so bad. If there was anyone to play up misogyny with, it was Jefferson, because he would tell Angelica for years and years that politics could never make women happy, and that the women in France were foolish for trying etc.. Hamilton would actually discuss politics with Angelica frequently and openly. And there’s a proto-feminist in the cast that was never recognized—Aaron Burr! He respected Theodosia Sr. as an equal and she was his most valuable political ally, and he made sure Theodosia Jr. got the same education any boy of her time would have. He actually respected women to a decent degree. Not to say he wasn't as much of a ho as Hamilton cuz yeah that's accurate (but they were both disaster bisexuals more on Burr's sexuality later)

Farmer Refuted was an essay Hamilton wrote arguing against Samuel Seabury's posts. They weren't shouting in the public square(but Lin got the sass right. I love his face when Hamilton and Seabury are fighting over the podium). Seabury was also really really old, not young and cute like Thayne, hence the line about "mange". Blech.

General Montgomery didn’t take a bullet in the neck, it was a grapeshot from a canon in his head (and his thighs), but close enough I guess. Side note: Burr actually served a short interim on Washington’s staff, but only for like 10 days because they hated each other lolol.

Alexander didn’t bring Laurens, Mulligan, or Lafayette to Washington. Lafayette joined up with the Continental Army in 1777 and quickly convinced them he wasn’t like the other French nobles; he was a glory-seeking kid with a boner for America (for some reason???). Laurens was requested by Washington to join his military family and he arrived also in August 1777 just after Lafayette. Like previously stated, Mulligan was doing shit even before Hamilton did.

Alexander would not have been in charge of spy shit (though may have been somewhat involved). Washington had people like Mulligan for that, who actually saved Washington a few times. But also, the "King’s men who might let some things slide" was the tactic Mulligan used. He was actually very charming, and his wife was very high in British society and he was a skilled tailor, so they were thought of well among the redcoats, and he got a lot of information through chatting with his customers. He also could usually smooth-talk his way out of trouble. Actually, Mulligan blended in so well, when the war was over, people in the city wanted him out cuz they thought he was a Loyalist. So George fucking Washington paid him a visit and commissioned I think a coat from him, and that cleared that up. He got a LOT of business after that.

Alexander would not be Washington’s right hand man, or at least, not his only one if Lin was using that to mean aide-de-camp. In that case, Laurens would also be Washington’s right hand man, along with many men not named in the musical.

John Laurens may have been reliable with the ladies (comes with the territory of being hot, rich, and a perfect gentleman), but he most certainly didn’t want to be. His father noted, rather proudly at the time, that as a young teenager he expressed no interest in girls. John was also married by 1780, and at least Alexander knew. (he told John he'd found out in the well-known April 1779 letter. You know... “Cold in my professions...find me a wife...the length of my nose...” That one.) Because John apparently didn't tell people he was married. Laurens. Sweetheart. Get. Your. Shit. Together.

John also would not be at this ball. February 1779 to March 1780 he is fighting down south, and this ball was early 1780.

The tomcat thing may be half true. Martha Washington did supposedly name a cat Hamilton, but it was an affectionate thing. The slang tomcat meaning ho wasn’t a thing at that time, so it couldn’t be named to tease Alex for his promiscuity. I believe this was one of the many things John Adams made up to slander Hamilton.

Hamilton and Eliza had met before 1780. They had met once two years prior at a dinner her father had hosted. Also, Hamilton had been courting her friend Kitty Livingston, and his friend and fellow aide Tench Tilghman had been attempting to court Eliza, and they’d actually done at least one sort-of double date (which is adorable). So this shouldn’t have been the first time they’d seen each other. Could still be when they fell in love, though, since they started courting after this. Which is cute to think about.

Speaking of Tench and Eliza! I don't remember when this took place but Tilghman journaled it, he went out on something of a hike with a few ladies and they got to a cliff. Of course, he had to help the girls climb up. Except Eliza who started climbing by herself like a natural to the bewilderment and likely horror of the other ladies. Elizabeth Schuyler was a bamf okay?

Of course everyone knows by now, Angelica was married before Eliza. During the Winter’s Ball, she’d already eloped with Jack Carter aka John Barker Church and run away to Boston.

Their courtship was not that fast. Not like, weeks. More like months. Fun fact, Eliza is the only of the five (yes FIVE) Schuyler sisters who didn’t elope and actually got her parents permission! But here’s a heartbreaking fun fact: while Alex was courting Eliza, Laurens was taken prisoner and then on probation. He wasn’t allowed to leave the state of Pennsylvania. He was mentally in a very dark place. Alex kind of procrastinated telling Laurens about Eliza, didn’t say he was courting anyone until they were already engaged.

I can't leave this alone if I'm sad you have to be too. Alex was hella depressed during this time too. Of course he was a soldier so he couldn't see Eliza as much as he'd have liked. On top of that, he kept pushing for an exchange for John and kept getting rejected because they couldn't show preference for him. And then Laurens was sending him very few letters, of course, and the ones he did send were very depressed, even suicidal sounding. He had to work while dealing with that. He had to keep begging Eliza to write to him to be reassured that she still liked him.

No one could show up for Hamilton for the wedding. Some sources say fellow aide James McHenry showed up, but he’s the only one. Alexander even invited his deadbeat dad, offered to pay all his travel expenses and everything, guess how that turned out. So Eliza’s side of the hall was packed and his was empty. God, can you imagine how sad that is?

Another heartbreaking fun fact! John Laurens was out of probation and could have made it to the wedding, was invited (Hamilton, I kid you not, jokingly invited him to a threesome with his new wife in a letter: “I wish you were at liberty to transgress the bounds of Pensylvania. I would invite you after the fall to Albany to be witness to the final consummation.” (emphasis is original to Hamilton. As is the misspelling of Pennsylvania. Yes, seriously.)) and John did not go. Instead he went back to work trying to talk his way out of getting sent as an envoy to France and suggesting Alexander to take his place. You know. His boyfriend who just got married. Sure, he was right that Hamilton was better equipped for the job, but yknow. Another fun fact, one of the guys who voted for John to be the one to go to France was John’s ex-boyfriend Francis Kinloch. Who was a turncoat, and had been a royalist when he and Laurens split. How’s that for some twisty bullshit.

Sorry, this one isn’t about the musical, it’s a tangent, I just got excited about that quote. Both that style of innuendo and the misspelling of Pennsylvania are consistent in Hamilton’s writing. Listening to john-lauren’s podcast about the April 1779 letter can really help you understand how Hammy uses innuendo but also I just love listening to it it’s insightful and hilarious and I love John Laurens but y u do this and my heart hurts for Hamilton but he is also a ho but aNYWAY. As for Pensylvania...well, he kinda made that mistake on an important document. ...It’s The Constitution. He misspelled Pennsylvania on The Constitution. No big deal. Not like something that could haunt his legacy forever. Oh my god I’m so sorry.

Philip Schuyler did have sons. Five in fact. Two of them died pretty young though I think, considering there are three kids in a row named John Bradstreet Schuyler. The other two were named Philip Jeremiah and Rensselaer.

Laurens, Lafayette, and Mulligan were all married before Hamilton. Hercules Mulligan married Elizabeth Sanders in 1773. Lafayette married his beloved Adrienne in 1774. John Laurens was regretfully obliged to marry Martha Manning in 1776.

Sigh. Again with the misogyny. Anyway, I wanted to comment on the marriage as a loss of freedom. From what I can tell, Elizabeth helped Hercules with his spy work at home. John was literally fighting a war across the ocean from his wife, and probably having an illegal affair with Alexander (though to be fair to him, he was kind of running away from Martha because he didn't marry her for love, gosh, there are no winners here). Lafayette absolutely adored his wife but still was also fighting a war an ocean away, and had multiple affairs, at least one with his wife’s blessing. So yeah, losing your freedom with marriage? Bullshit.

Despite where it is in the musical and Eliza singing the beginning, Stay Alive is roughly about Valley Forge, which would be December of 1777 through June of 78. So before the ball and wedding. (Fun fact! A lot of people theorize Valley Forge as when Hamilton and Laurens’ relationship may have escalated into romantic and/or sexual territory. They may have had more privacy, as small temporary buildings were being made to better withstand the cold, and Hamilton was sick a lot during that time and did need tending a lot. West Indian boi did not like Northern winter.) But yeah, Congress being stupid and the army resorting to eating their horses sometimes and not being able to buy food and equipment? All true. It was a real bad winter.

Mulligan wouldn’t have to go back to New York, he never would have left. He remained there as a tailor and a spy throughout the war. He wouldn’t have been traveling with Washington.

Hamilton and Laurens didn't write essays so much as start working out John's battalion plan and writing letters trying to push for it.

This duel happened in 1778, so like. This timeline is so fucky.

Stay Alive makes it seem like Hamilton was the one who wanted to duel Lee, but it was 100% Laurens from the start. The off-Broadway version demonstrates it a bit better. Hamilton was Lauren's second to save his ass. Hamilton had a rough relationship with Washington, but Laurens admired him greatly and would have willingly defended his commander’s honor. John was a Good Boy who always bowed his head to his asshole father, even at first for his battalion plan, but John wouldn’t let even his father talk shit about Washington. Fun fact about this duel, Alex and John were late to the duel because they “got lost in the woods”. Oooookay. Suuuuuuure. And Baron von Steuben was straight. (Fact: Steuben was very gay and pretty much pushed out of Europe for it. And he actually also had challenged Lee! They talked things out before this.)

Aaron Burr was not Charles Lee’s second. His second was a Major Evan Edwards. Lin wanted a parallel with the final duel. To be fair, that was a really cool way to do it and I like it better that way.

Alexander Hamilton could NOT agree that duels are dumb and immature. He was in 10 duel challenges as a participant in his lifetime, 9 of which he was the challenger. One time he challenged two people at once. One time he challenged an entire politcal party apparently. No, I am not kidding. He had a bad day. And I think you know the one time he wasn’t the challenger.

Lee did not yield on the first shot, nor was Laurens satisfied. Lee was pretty much like, “It’s just a flesh wound!” and wanted to go another round and Laurens agreed, but Hamilton and Edwards managed to talk them down. Yes he was shot in the side. But that wasn’t all because Laurens absolutely roasted Lee at his court martial. 

Lee: Were you ever in an action before?

Laurens: I have been in several actions; I did not call that an action, as there was no action previous to the retreat. 

I love this man. So much. The sass of this man.

We don’t know if Washington was angry about the duel with Lee. We do know that Laurens, and probably Hamilton, had Christmas dinner with him two days later. When Hamilton left, it was because Washington had snapped over a misunderstanding (caused by Lafayette actually, and he really tried to make it better because Lafayette is a sweetheart), and then continued to deny Hamilton the command he requested, and he resigned. It was entirely unrelated to the duel and Laurens. However, the daddy issues are real.

I don’t know if Lafayette went to France for more funds and came back with more guns, but Laurens certainly did! Ben Franklin told him to chill, but he actually got super impatient and ended up supposedly disrespecting and maybe kinda threatening the court, demanding what he needed, and walking out. They were were kind of shocked and impressed into giving more than had been requested. Any existing deities bless John Laurens. I love him.

Lafayette actually nominated his own aide to lead the charge and Hamilton appealed for himself and Washington finally gave in to Hamilton.

Laurens was not in South Carolina. When he finally got back from France, he was sent to Yorktown. He actually was commanding the group Alexander led. (Power couple lol) He also helped with negotiations after the battle. Also, supposedly making the British play ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ on their way out was Laurens’ idea because boy is made of sass and spite.

Henry Laurens would not have sent a letter to Hamilton about John’s death. Even if he would have, he couldn’t. At that time, he’d been locked up in the Tower of London as a prisoner. We have no idea when or how Alexander found out, or who might have told him. We know he wrote to Nathanael Greene on October 25 and Lafayette on November 3 (literally 2 months after Laurens' death), and the mentions of Laurens were very short. It’s thought that he really couldn’t talk about Laurens. People have compared it to the stories of how Benjamin Tallmadge apparently couldn’t hear Nathan Hale’s name without crying.

After Yorktown Alexander resigned and John went down south to flush British troops out of the southern states. His group was ambushed at Combahee River and he decided to charge instead of wait for backup and he died. Many people think it was a combination of his usual recklessness, suicidality, and glory-seeking mixed with a desperation with the war coming to an end. It was such a small skirmish. He deserved better. He left his daughter, Frances, whom he had never met, orphaned, as her mother had died months earlier from sickness. She was adopted by John’s oldest younger sister, also coincidentally Martha Laurens (though married was Martha Laurens Ramsay).

The Levi Weeks case was years later than that, in 1800, though it was alongside Burr. Hamilton actually lost his first trial as a defense lawyer and was not with Burr.

The whole conversation where Hamilton proposes Burr help him write the Federalist Papers is fake. Lin made that up entirely.

John Church’s wealth kinda...varies. He was a gambler. At first, he was actually in quite a bit of debt. He did make it big eventually and he and Angelica moved to Europe. He really didn’t seem to be a lot of fun to most people, but Angelica eloped with him. She chose him against her father’s wishes. I don’t get why Lin kept writing lines saying she didn’t love him, at least at first. He also does this in the cut song Congratulations where she says “I languished in a loveless marriage” bish you eloped wat She also lived as a socialite and was adored by anyone who met her apparently, so like???? da fuq Lin. Didja really do Laurens dirty for these lies or at the very least uncertanties? Could you not prop up that romance without making her say she hates her husband?

Act 2

More of a personality miscommunication. Irl Thomas Jefferson was shy, quiet, and hypersensitive, nothing like how Daveed plays him. If you knew a guy like the real Jefferson in real life you might be endeared to him out of pity or because he seems sweet, but in the short time of a musical that would immediately be read as cold and unlikable. So the best way to portray “this guy is a likable asshole” is to make him loud and made of sass which is what Daveed does magnificently. So, not at all accurate to real Jefferson, but gets the concept of him across.

Thomas was not off getting high with the French. Probably. He was making negotiations for the Revolution. And abusing Sally Hemings (his, at the time, 14 year old slave, who was also his sister-in-law, and 30 years his junior, and was brought along to entertain his daughter). And actually probably chatting up with Angelica!

By the time Philip was 9, he had two sisters, Angelica (7) and his foster/adopted sister Frances Antill (6), but he also had two brothers already, Alexander Jr. (5) and James Alexander (3), with maybe another one on the way since William Stephen would be born next year.

The whole comma thing is backwards. It was Angelica who made the initial mistake. Hamilton pointedly and flirtatiously teased her about it before closing it with “Adieu ma chere, soeur” French for “Goodbye my dear, sister”. So it’s more playful and less lovey dovey in context, so the tone is all wrong. It’s not romantic, it’s teasing and snarky.

Say No To This feels like it’s over quick. The affair lasted a year, not just the summer Eliza was away.

Clermont Street wasn’t renamed until many years later.

I don’t know that Alex has always considered Burr a friend. Irl they weren’t as close, and Hamilton was keenly aware of how slimy Burr could be.

Lafayette was NOT fine. He was imprisoned a lot during the French Revolution, the poor man, and many members of his wife’s family were killed. HOWEVER! Hamilton was not just sitting by. Angelica and her husband did make an attempt to rescue Lafayette, and the Hamiltons fostered Lafayette’s son Georges Washington Lafayette (yes that was his actual name). So Hamilton also did not forget Lafayette.

Not all his defendants got acquitted, obviously. Stop being cocky, Ham.

People comment on how Jefferson whines about Hamilton’s fashion sense while literally dressed in violet velvet. The original plan was to have him in browns, but Daveed is just such a friggin star that they just had to give him something brighter and decided to go with a Prince-inspired look. Originally the browns were going to be representative of his supposed representation of farmers. Though note here: Jefferson’s agricultural representation is much the same as modern Republicans’ rural representation. More for show.

Actually, let's get political for a sec. I've done some research in my hyperfixation and in searches for Hamilton shiz I've ended up stumbling into far-right nonsense and I know how to recognize the degrees of nonsense from years of actually paying attention to it now because this is what I do apparently. Which is weird, right? Lin kinda portrays him like a lefty. Well, here's the thing. Any proud historically educated Republican will tell you that their roots are in the Federalist Party. Which is technically true. What they will neglect to mention is the flip between parties that happened when the Republicans decided to use southerners racism to their advantage in elections. Being subtly racist can get the racists and the non-racists on your side! Yeah, it's gross. Federalists are more like Democrats. The corporatists. They clearly care more about companies and Wall Street, but they put actual action into social progress on rare occasion. Democratic-Republicans are like Republicans, conservatives who don't want social change and rail against it and pretend they aren't for corporate interests while being just as bad as the other guys. But Republicans have a tendency to rewrite history to paint themselves as the good guys, or reclaim things that aren't theirs as their own. Just look at the Civil War! Or...literally just...America I guess. Yikes. But yeah, here's your warning. Don't just go looking at and trusting things labelled Federalist. It likely won't be friendly.

John Adams didn’t fire Hamilton, Hamilton left. Eventually. And this is not the only time this kind of verbal confrontation happens, and not the one that destroys the Federalist Party. That actually happens after the Reynolds Pamphlet. But John Adams hates Alexander Hamilton with the burning passion of a thousand suns and really kinda earns this.

I’m not sure if he specifically called Alex a Creole bastard but I wouldn’t be surprised, there were other similar racist and bastard-related insults. You know the tomcat thing mentioned above. He started the rumor of the affair with Angelica. He accused him of being a rake (male version of whore at the time). He also may have behind closed doors accused him of being a sodomite. His (probably gay) son Charles helped with that one, bringing back rumors from a dinner he had with Hamilton (who he was working for) and John Church because Church joked about Alex being fond of a guy. Adams probably thought working for Hamilton was what made his son gay and alcoholic (Charles was an alcoholic and may have died in part because of that; Hamilton was not an alcoholic, but he supposedly could not hold his drink. He was smol).

Jefferson, Madison, and Burr didn’t accuse Hamilton of speculation. It was James Monroe, Abraham Venable, and Frederick Muhlenberg. Lin wanted to keep consistent representation of the Democratic-Republican party. But anyway, the whole thing went to hell because Monroe sent the letters to Jefferson (or I’ve also heard Monroe gave them to Madison who sent them to Jefferson) who, the spiteful gangly fucker, started spreading rumors because fuck Hamilton, amirite? Hamilton challenged Monroe to a duel over that. And who stopped this duel? Aaron Burr. He gets to be the good guy now and then.

It wasn’t just total strangers that got Alex off the island. He was sponsored by his cousin Ann Lytton and his teacher Reverend Hugh Knox. Also, he was kind of expected to get an education and come back and help out the island...guess what he never did. Oops.

This one I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure. I think Eliza was upstate with her family when the Reynolds Pamphlet was released, away from Alex. I also know she had recently given birth to their son, William Stephen. A lot of people think Alexander had been keeping that in mind. Eliza had had a miscarriage once before, when she was under a lot of stress and alone and with the kids and he had to be away (Whiskey Rebellion), so some people think he made sure she was surrounded by her family and waited until the child was born to drop this on her, and gave her distance from him if she needed it. At least he knew he fucked up, and he really did love her.

Those weren’t Alexander’s guns. They belonged to John Church.

It was quite some time between Philip’s challenge and the actual duel.

Another age miscommunication; Eacker was 27ish and Philip was 19 when the duel happened. There was a whole 8 years between them! 

Eacker didn’t shoot early. Actually, both of them stood staring at each other for a really long time doing nothing. But Philip went to make a move and Eacker shot him.

Alex and Eliza had made up from the Reynolds Pamphlet bullshit before Philip died. When he passed, Eliza was already pregnant with the son they would also name Philip in honor of his older brother.

Hamilton wasn’t really the deciding factor in the election of 1800. But he did say that about Burr and it did help swing the vote somewhat. But also, this was before Philip died. Philip died in 1801.

If a vote is that close, you can’t win in a landslide??? That’s not how words work???? Mister Miranda????? You are a writer??????? Sir???????

Burr actually held a term as Jefferson’s Vice President.

The Burr vs Hamilton Duel was in 1804 and was actually about another election and other things Hamilton was saying about him. Burr was running to be governor of New York and lost but heard about Alexander telling people the things he listed Alexander saying in Your Obedient Servant.

Thayne should not have played Alexander’s doctor. Sydney should have played Alexander’s doctor. Do you know why? Philip and Alexander had the same doctor when they died. Alexander took that doctor with him to the duel. His name was David Hosack.

While there’s evidence to suggest Burr experienced immediate regret (he stepped forward as if wanting to see if Hamilton was okay and supposedly asked after him and wished him well before Alexander passed) in the years that followed, until he was on his death bed, he expressed nothing but neutrality or even pride for having shot Hamilton. The ‘the world was wide enough’ comment could plausibly be entirely made up, and even if it were true, it was supposedly said toward the end of Burr’s life. Burr's life was quite a ride after Alex. He tried to make like his own empire out of Texas, and then of course was tried for treason, but he got out of that, but then everyone hated him for that ON TOP OF already hating him for killing Hamilton, so he had some crazy journey around Europe for a while. He kept a journal, writing entries like letters to Theo. The most notable things I think he writes he'd "been amused for an hour with a very handsome young Dane. Don't smile. It is a male!" which implies maybe Theodosia knew her dad was bi and was at least amused by it? And he spent a while living with Jeremy Bentham, who is generally accepted to have been gay (if you want more Burr gayness look into Jonathan Bellamy and Robert Troup. Troup knew Hamilton too!). Unrelated to his sexuality but I find it important, Burr spent, in modern cash, $40 on a coconut, in his own words, "like an ass." He returned to America eventually. I dont remember if it was before or after his foreign adventures, but his beloved grandson (also named Aaron Burr) died, and then not long after, Theodosia was lost at sea on her way to visit her dad. No one knows what happened to her. It's so sad. Anyway he married a wealthy widow named Eliza, spent all her money on charity, and died the day their divorce was finalized. And Eliza Jumel's divorce lawyer was Alexander Hamilton Jr..

Poor Eliza couldn’t go through all of her husband’s papers. Her son, John Church Hamilton, finished the work for her when she no longer could and put together the biography that inspired Chernow’s that inspired Lin’s musical. (He named a son Alexander and a daughter Elizabeth. He even named one of his sons Laurens! Aw.) And we have come full circle.

The End :33

There’s probably more but that’s what I’ve got. Thanks for reading!

#Hamilton #Alexander Hamilton #Lin-Manuel Miranda #maybe I'll add more tags later #or maybe not #Aaron Burr #John Laurens #Marquis de Lafayette #Hercules Mulligan #Angelica Schuyler Church #Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton #Margarita Schuyler Van Rensselaer #George Washington #Thomas Jefferson #James Madison #Maria Reynolds #Philip Hamilton #Rachel Faucette #James Hamilton #Peter Lytton #Philip Schuyler #Samuel Seabury #King George III #Charles Lee #Sally Hemings #George Eacker

[smolstarthief]

Persona 5/Persona 5 Strikers: Pro-Police or Anti-Police?

Hoo boy... So this honestly has been a LONG time coming on my end because I have seen so much of that debate on social media (Twitter namely) and I can see the points of BOTH sides but there have been moments where it just got out of hand... Especially whenever people tried to put in a more grey/nuanced take only to be slammed and taken out of context. Even repeatedly mentioning the interrogation at the beginning of P5 which, I will admit has gotten tiresome. At least for me, I do still feel for Joker and I wished the game acknowledged his trauma more but there's a thing called, "beating a dead horse" and this is one along with "Haru says ACAB" in Strikers (which was done THREE TIMES in the same arc and it got annoying fast, like shut up already! We get it!). So, let's dive in a little bit:

MAJOR SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!!!

Persona 5/Persona 5 Royal

Now let me just say I know! Police in Japan are just as bad if not worse than the West and I STILL hate the idea of Makoto wanting to become a cop for such naive reasons (especially with what happened to Sae, her own sister!)... But there are at least some of form of nuances sometimes and by that I mean, I can see what they were trying to do? I do agree that P5/P5S backpedaled SEVERELY by deciding to sweep issues under the rug after addressing them and not continuing from such. In fact I feel like it could have been a hell of a lot better. But P5 did something different compared to previous games and addresses the issues DIRECTLY right at the beginning of said game! It was tense and horrifying, but needed. Of course... They then sweep it under the rug and act like nothing traumatic happened to our protag which is NOT a good look at all and I'm still pissed off about it. In the main game's case, it's portrayed as more black and white with only a SMALL amount of nuance like that cop that was trying to help Futaba when she went out by herself and got lost (which people ignore entirely by the way). So I CAN see where people got the "anti-police" message from... But that's only the tip of the iceberg as it's ACTUALLY more about Systematic Corruption, not exactly or JUST police corruption. Namely in politics with Shido and the Conspiracy (which is apparently still somewhat around in Strikers until Owada's downfall) controlling everything all the way to law enforcement. The force had been basically under his payroll (including the corrupt SIU Director before his death) whether by force or not (mostly not in this case though). Now honestly, the police depicted there are undoubtedly rotten to the core save for a VERY SMALL handful (the cop that was trying to help Futaba which, again, gets ignored by several). Look at the interrogators who ruthlessly beat and drug a minor without any second thought or remorse for example. But again, the black and white narrative the game kept unwittingly doing ended up being to its detriment in a way. I'm not defending those assholes AT ALL! They deserved every punishment given to them! But for a game that goes on about grey morality... It doesn't quite deliver on that. Still though, it does emphasize that it's more of the fault of the whole corrupt system, not just one part of it. There needs to be change and reform which is what our MCs were trying to do in a way (more like inspiring change but still). In the end, it's all about the following:

Corruption and abuse of power.

Again the police depicted in this game were incompetent at best, corrupt at worse with very few silver linings. But it's not just them but rather the one person responsible for the whole mess. Who had them under his payroll? Who controlled them and by extension all of Tokyo? Who was willing to dispose of anyone who "outlives their usefulness" or is perceived as a threat to what he wants (including his own family)?

SHIDO AND BY EXTENSION THE CONSPIRACY

Bottom line: They are definitely a problem but it's not just them.

"But, Joker and his trauma?"

I definitely understand that and still do. I fully believe he has and still has trauma with the police. Easy! But... I do feel like people go too far with it sometimes. It's hard to explain but there have been moments where people either use it as a justification/argument against someone trying to provide a more nuanced view of things or... Dare I say, depict him like a "uwu soft traumatized boi." Like I said, it's hard to explain on my end so feel free to ignore it. Everyone deals with trauma differently so there is STRONG chance that I'm overanalyzing it. I just remember moments where I just feel a little, I guess annoyed? I'm not sure exactly but final thing: I understand what he went through and I can't imagine how long it would take to recover but I hope he DOES overcome it.

"Sae? Akechi?"

Yep, even though their jobs are different, they are by and large members of law enforcement no matter how you spin it. Both were broken in a way. Akechi is pretty easy to explain with how Shido negatively impacted his life but not much about Sae, who dealt with sexism/misogyny at her workplace along with the trauma of her father's (also a cop) death. She no doubt had some idealism only to be hit with the fact that she's gonna have to use underhanded/downright illegal tactics to get by and even rise up the ranks. She, therefore ended up (well, nearly) corrupted herself before coming to her senses. That's honestly one of the BIGGEST REASONS why I felt like Makoto joining the force to become a police commissioner isn't a good, even a downright naïve, idea. I honestly would have been somewhat fine with it if it weren't for that fact among other things. Regardless of her willpower, it will go south fast.

Now... Onto Strikers!

Persona 5 Strikers

Since the game came out and I started playing it, I still feel like the system is still beyond saving, especially when attempting to do it from the inside. But I don't mind the added nuances that P5 didn't do much of. It's still continuing the critiques, just shows more of what does happen within said system and even has an ACTUAL officer (Zenkichi) say, "Yeah, my job sucks, everyone's corrupt, there are much better ways to do things and make a change but not this. I'm only staying because I have a daughter to take care of and it's all I know. I'm no different from them." Was it all handled well? I wouldn't say "yes" (Joker's trauma is BARELY addressed at all of course) but a little better than what P5's narrative did which only addressed the issues but not exactly follow up on them. Now to be fair... In the system, regardless of where you live, any one within it who remotely tries to do something or speak against it either lose their jobs or even go "missing" irl. Those have happened and it's more proof that yeah, it's rotten to the core. There's no denying it but regardless, that's NOT what the game is about at all. At least that's what I feel about it as it's only PART of the narrative. I think Zenkichi puts it best here:

Speaking of Zenkichi... Oh boy... Now I definitely understand some of the criticisms with him but honestly, he was the best written (PT) character I've ever encountered! He was honestly the perfect representation of those that genuinely want to help and do good, only to be held back by an extremely harsh reality. It was already hinted at with Sae but here? It 100 percent confirms just how harsh and even cutthroat it can be if it could break someone's idealism so badly. Even Kaburagi of all people thinks the same thing Zenkichi said:

Then there's his past and it's a tragic one! But let's look more at the decisions he ended up making:

While it was no doubt done to protect his daughter, he ended making a selfish decision along with a selfless one (which was brilliant!) with not only allowing the cover up of his wife's death and denying justice for her, but also ruining an innocent person and their family's lives.

It's horrible, but also... There's a grey area/nuance as with the rest of his character. It was both understandable, but also wrong as he, as Akane's Shadow puts it:

He sacrificed his values, his morals, all for the sake of having a peace of mind. Speaking of Akane, she's also an interesting case in a way that she more or less perfectly represents the more "black and white" views on justice in general. Namely the more toxic/biased kind. Her reasons are also understandable but she was also acting selfishly by only focusing on how SHE was effected by Aoi's death and not even considering those that were also grieving her death and/or that people grieve/handle grief differently than her. But back on topic.

Her own views and beliefs that law enforcement basically SHOULD be dismantled (mostly out of said childish bias and black & white views) and it's framed as WRONG and it's very much correct on that. Chaos and order are two sides of the same coin, one can't exist without the other. When I say ACAB, I'm calling for reform, defund, have the corrupt held accountable for EVERYTHING and even face jail time for their crimes! Defund the police, have the ones that arrest, harm, and even murder out of bias (race, gender, etc.), lose their badges/jobs and locked up, make improvements! It's saying that there IS still corruption out there and there's no denying it. But fully eliminating the law in general will just lead to more problems. Now granted, she's young and clearly doesn't fully understand why those views are ultimately wrong but still... It was a very interesting subject to tackle and I feel like they handled it well.

Now back to Zenkichi, he was at first in denial about his decisions ultimately being the wrong ones too and even tries to justify it. Of course, his Shadow said otherwise and that was when he finally admitted that he really did act no different from the criminals he despised. But it also doesn't mean he can't redeem himself and that's what ultimately leads to his new resolve:

That right there along with everything else! There's the nuance! And ultimately despite some hiccups, Strikers handled the grey morality and nuance beautifully! Especially regarding law enforcement! Dare I say, even better than the base game! It continues the critiques with no problem but also showing different sides and areas of it! There is good and evil, but what about in-between? What about the more greyer area? It still says that there IS corruption, sometimes even beyond saving but... Sometimes a small silver lining is hidden somewhere.

Now, the ultimate question:

Is P5 & P5S (namely the latter) Pro-Police or Anti-Police?

Personally, my answer is this: Neither.

Why? What theme do they both have in common?

JUSTICE

Someone puts it best on Twitter that the games are more pro-justice and I fully agree!

P5/P5S gives the idea about following your OWN justice, your OWN moral code and rules, paving your OWN path and not let others dictate it! That's what the MCs ultimately start to learn in both games. Therefore it's pro-justice. Again, do I agree that the system is beyond saving? Yeah. Do I at least acknowledge and understand what the narratives are trying to say and nuances regardless even if I don't agree with some writing decisions (ex: Makoto wanting to become a commissioner despite everything)? Also yes. But at the same time, don't judge a book by its cover for other people (not just law enforcement and politics mind you). Especially some that genuinely DO want to help at best. That there is nuance and greyness, just have to look closely. Some of the MCs are still TERRIBLY written and executed (even annoying) but the message was still somewhat there.

Final Thoughts

Now I fully understand how you all feel of course! I still believe in ACAB and even I agree that maybe I'm one to talk and have a lot more to learn about the world... This is just my own attempt at putting my own two cents in. If you disagree, that's fine! This is just what I've felt should be at least talked about more often. And I tried to phrase it as best as I can without coming off as insensitive or ignorant and if I did, I sincerely apologize for that! I'm not trying to say, come off as a "bootlicker" or any of the sort. I'm just trying show discuss more of the grey areas and nuances that are, more often than not, constantly overlooked. How one interprets both games is ultimately up to them. You, the player. And this is my own interpretation. Simple as that. I hope you all have a good day/afternoon/evening!

#starchild rambles #analysis #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #persona 5 strikers #p5 #p5r #p5s #p5s spoilers #p5r spoilers #p5 spoilers #long post

[ohhedamylexa]

lets try a character blurb y tf not --> be warned gratuitous swearing ahead scream/agree/disagree w/ me on discord @ luke skywalker's left udder#5324

bellatrix druella cygnus black lestrange

actually: bellatrix druella cygna back lestrange, legally and all.

doesn't give one shit what their mother actually named them, reinventing themselves every day.

"i'm so in the closet i built the thing" re: non-binary, gender-expressionism - transmasc identity. a tangled up literal knot of twisted internalized misogyny shoved down their throat from such a young age they chewed and swallowed.

empathetically stunted. straightforward to the point of pain - unable and unwilling to understand subtlety. sarcasm? nope i dont know her.

rodolphus has bi partner energy by default.

most definitely was that child that smushed ants/insects for curiosity as a kid. if the neighbors cat ever went missing, it wasn't them.

definitely a wine of the month club member.

the kind who would defy you just because. stubborn to the point of fault. big fault. bad habit of pushing boundaries too far.

has never really needed to care about people outside of family circles. is not good at it. blood is everything? no connection without it?

huge ego, rampant narcissist as a younger person. would probably hold things over on others just because they were most noble and ancient and absolutely ate that shit up. this has cooled, somewhat.

prison sux ok.

does not will not will never reach the boundaries of wanting to learn and find out and figure out how things tick. including self and brain and thoughts and feelings. could have been a mad scientist in another life - maybe is one in this life.

would not know what a fast food restaurant is.

very wildmagic aesthetic. wand/magic doesn't always listen brain goes buzz burrr buzz buzz sparky spark.

the bad kind of posh where it's difficult to function? how will they feed themselves as a fugitive? they don't know how to do anything? cold beans in a can it is i guess.

highly highly allergic to like 47000 things, thanks inbreeding. probably has the diet of an aristocratic four year old.

has wanted for so long to be the thing their father would have deemed acceptable they now can no longer separate that from their ideas of masculinity. both hates and wants everything

simultaneously feels so unable to be those things, bracketed between a ancient and noble most house that has never seen them as anything other than a brood mare to feed and fatten

the most underhanded gremlin you've ever seen. always been tall and weedy and wiry but scrappy as hell. has no qualms about honor and dignity in an fight.

bites fingernails to the quick.

all situations are a fight, and all fights are brawls to kill.

probably banned from dueling club

ideas about sexuality and gender further complicated and tangled in this endlessly burning, all encompassing physical need to be a parent.

totally the rich goth victorian aesthetic? bram stoker step aside

who needs lipstick when you've got wine stains

would be a doting but completely overbearing, suffocating, toxic parent

will literally do anything for acceptance? has pretty obvious and severe daddy issues.

what's the opposite of a boggart? their thing is bodysnatching sirius black, having literally everything they ever wanted.

andromeda does not exist. they do not mention, they do not think, they do not still seethe and sob about the abandonment on a weekly basis.

was about 92% prepared to flee the country pre-wedding. whether that mentality continued post wedding is tbd.

laur remind me i want to DM you and talk shop re: the lestranges

also alexx with bella's favorite sirius 'i have vivid fantasies of slitting his throat and stealing his body' black

and kayla with the ultimate worst best ex-sister.

#1987rp #i want to lean into the gritty parts of bellas character while also exploring sexuality and non-traditional gender expression. #non-binary/genderqueer =/= automatically a mentally ill/insane person #i'm trying to thread the needle. i'm mostly writing from my personal experience as a non-binary person and plan to liberally use TW tags #but also if things are squicky please just yell at me. #i want to do a really interesting character study of a bellatrix that is more than the woman in a mans world character that jk gave us #let's also be clear i don't want to write psychopath bellatrix. #i wrote these tags at 4:45 am #discord added later #it sometimes hates adding me to friends lists because of username spaces #so if that happens just yell via tumblr and i'll friend you