#i'm not a bootlicker for wanting to live a normal life

[poichanchan]

Hiii, someone relatively new to the phandom having just played through p5r, but can I ask how the swap au premise works? I'm curious what your own takes might be on how the situations for both joker and akechi happened to lead for them to be on opposite sides in comparison to the game! I tried to look it up a bit, but there's a lot of different headcanons, but I love your concepts so much I wanted to see if you had any particular thoughts on the setting :3

Hiiiii welcome to p5 brainrot jail haha! (genuinely though, welcome and im happy you enjoyed p5r!) Everyone has their take on swapAU, I specifically wanted to play with the idea of Goro and Akira swapping their ROLES ONLY.

In my AU Goro Akechi is still the son of Shido who is largely out of his life. Goro's life is a mess, his moms in rehab, and he is sent to Tokyo on probation (to his mother's friend Muhen the owner of JazzJin). I've adjusted Goro's life just enough to have him keep his childish love for justice. He finds his found family in the PT. Goro is a Snarky, whole, intelligent, a little mean, energetic, gets flustered, but also is passive and observant when he needs to be. HIS ROUGH LIFE MADE HIM GRUFF AND HONEST BUT HE ISNT JADED. Akira hates how shallow and transactional his life is. He has his awakening, ends up on Shido's radar via the research group he has in place to explore and exploit the metaverse. Akira's parents probably work around the research team somewhere and didn't think too hard about what they were getting their son into... a mix of negligence and wanting to get more opportunities as a family/bootlick. From there he has his forced 2nd awakening and gets ensnared in Shido's conspiracy. There is a lot of resentment in his life because of this, and when he is faced with Goro's existence, the literal SON OF SHIDO WHO HAS THE SAME POWERS yet life turned out so different for him because their roles are swapped its terrible. Akira is also very good at adapting to who he talks to like in canon. He is good at socializing and charming, thus the detective prince facade becomes a thing to help him gain access to deeper levels of mementos blah blah blah

Akira is also rationalizing a lot, he is seeing himself weeding corrupt people out, a hero getting hands dirty and sacrificing self for greater good. The metaverse is his stage. And he is THE showman. Detective prince Akira is more sweeping/showy/charismatic/flirty, his joker vibe comes through more normally. APART from the resentment Akira has for seeing Goro live his life the way he does, the resounding ITS NOT FAIR he feels in his heart, he also reeeeeally want the stupid phantom thieves to 'cherish your normalcy. stop messing with my plan. how fucking naive do you have to be to think THIS is justice?' COLD SEETHING FOCUSED FURY FROM AKIRA Its such a mess lol But i think hit Akira in the places that would make him play out the detective prince and Black mask bits without losing too much of his own flavor. His rationalizing is important, otherwise i felt he would feel the moral conflict harder and withdraw instead of being showy and sweeping. Also for their social links i have thoughts, i think detective Akira's special place would not be... jazzjin. I think he would drop by like canon Akechi drops by Leblanc, but nothing more. I have in mind a place up high at a height, something like the Shibuya Sky observation deck as a place he personally visits often to reflect and stare at the massive view of the city from. It felt right to have him up there looking down alone but comforted by it. Plus eventually share the view with Goro who he sees as this actual fated rival for all the reasons above. Their outfits are the way they are because i did not want to change them too severely in colorpallette or essence but wanted to play up some parts of their personality and represent it in the outfits. AND BECAUSE THIS IS A SHUAKESHU BLOG I NEED TO STRESS THAT because they are less jaded, because Akira is bolder and flirtier and Goro is more stubbornly optimistic about this dark world akira sees, they get closer alot faster, which makes the whole black mask and interrogation room bit very messy/

added pix to make post spicier THIS IS A MASSIVE POST BUT IM GLAD YOU ASKED BECAUSE I DUMPED MY THOUGHTS IN ONE PLACE FINALLY. there are some other things ive thought out a tiny bit, like hobbies etc but i put them down later when ive developed it more etc @ anyone reading, thank u for reading and these are my personal thoughts i am thingying to entertain myself!!!!! dont be mean to me thanks ;v;

#swap au #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #IS THIS A MASTERPOST #masterpost #ref #sorry if i have typos in there its 2am and the question has me brainrotting again

[caparrucia]

You know what just hit me?

Americans are trying to make "anti" and "proship" into a marketable subculture like "fujoshi."

And they don't understand that it's not about morals. It's not about identity.

It's about marketability.

You know what's a fujoshi? It's a fucking target demographic. It's a group of people that gets specifically marketed to. There is an actual fucking industry that exists to cater to their specific tastes and wants, because they have the money to sustain it.

Your whole "anti vs proship" culture war nonsense is dead in the fucking water because all of you assholes have a budget of twenty bucks and you keep passing it along in a perpetual circle of go-fund-mes.

And it keeps self sabotaging because at any point someone tries to monetize the discourse grief and bring in physicality to it, you all freak out and harass them out. You wouldn't wear merch of your silly internet slapfights. You wouldn't pay import taxes to support a show that explicitly aligns with your whole "the fiction I consume explicitly defines and outlines my entire sense of self" deal.

That's why they're silly internet slapfights (which then get escalated into actual fucking felonies by the dumbest among you, but that's a different angle). Because you won't commit to it.

Do you think fujoshi folk give a fuck about what some rando on the internet thinks about them? They walk around in real life wearing the cringiest fucking merch and living their goddamn best life.

If you really want people to take the whole anti vs proship thing seriously, fucking commit to it. But most people won't, because it's not really about any of the things they claim it's about. It's about respectability politics and the pathetic need to shriek "I'M NORMAL, I'M THE NORMAL ONE, LOOK AT HOW NORMAL I AM!" when you encounter anything that makes you the smallest bit uncomfortable.

Normality bootlickers are never going to get an entire cottage industry built around their needs and wants, specifically. And you know, deep down, I think they know it. That's what they're mad about.

#shut up rie

[porterdavis]

Fan mail

Normally I don't respond to notes written in crayon but the author went to great lengths to express himself so I'll post it here:

You 100% support this bullshit in every form, don't you dare act like you oppose it when you hope it happens. You're the definition of a bootlicker to a goddamn T. Don't ever condemn this shit when you're out here guzzling cop dick like a morphine drip on the daily as if your life depended on it. You're a statist bitch boy and that's all you've ever been.

It's puzzling because just before this paragraph he lists six 'accusations' against me which are fairly true.

You demand guns be banned

No, I think assault weapons should be banned, background checks should be mandatory, concealed carry be severely limited, and age restrictions put in place.

You demand private health insurance be made illegal.

Another way to put it would be I support universal healthcare

You demand the FBI and DoD exist

Um, they do.

You supported the Obama administration using the NSA to watch regular Americans

Everybody 'watches' regular Americans. Nobody more so than business.

You defend Biden even when the criticism is more than valid

I defend Biden because not many people will. As he says -- don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative. Biden v. Trump? Don't make me laugh.

You defended vaccine mandates and slandered the reputation of people that just wanted to live their lives with peace.

Half-true. I defended mandates and still do. You have every right to live your life in peace but if you go into public places without vaccines and masks, please don't exhale.

But then he loses the thread with the first paragraph. It seems he thinks I'm a lick-spittle police lover when the link I posted was about police brutality. I've been writing about killer cops since I started blogging in 2010. I have the receipts. If I knew what a 'statist bitch boy' was I'd respond, but I'll need a little more to go on.

Anyway -- Ancappunk, thanks for playing. I'll make sure you get a participation award.

[samtransgressions2]

 01x01 pilot

#1: sam is too young to remember their mother in this scene. later, she burns to death on the ceiling and he doesn’t even do anything to help her. off to an excellent start.

time tag: 00:20

#2: sam doesn’t objectify jess when she’s dressed as a sexy nurse for halloween, or later on when she’s in her pyjamas.

time tag: 04:41

#3: yknow what, this entire set up is a transgression for sam, because the only reason he’s even here is because he ditched his family to go to college. i bet he’s proud of his LSAT score. class traitor.

time tag: 05:00

#4: sam failed to neutralise an enemy who broke into his house and, conversely, sam assaulted dean for breaking into his house. also sam forced dean to break into his house by not answering the phone after he was kicked out of home by his family, even though we later discover that dean got a new phone around 6 months prior.

time tag: 06:25

#5: sam talks about their childhood as if dean wasn’t also there. he also tries to justify going to college and ditching his family.

SAM: The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors.

DEAN: So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?

SAM: No. Not normal. Safe.

DEAN: And that's why you ran away.

SAM: I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing.

time tag: 08:32

#6: sam disapproves of both the credit card scams and dean’s casette tape collection.

time tag: 16:30

#7: sam is respectful towards the police. ACAB means all cops, bootlicker.

time tag: 19:05

#8: sam says that their mom is dead and won’t come back. unforgivable. and, as of 11x23, incorrect.

DEAN: You have a responsibility to—

SAM: To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back.

DEAN grabs SAM by the collar and shoves him up against the railing of the bridge. A long pause.

DEAN: Don't talk about her like that.

time tag: 23:10

#9: sam tries to instigate a chick flick moment.

time tag: 27:26

#10: sam makes a fake 911 phone call to give dean an opportunity to break out, wasting valuable police resources. respect the boys in blue!

time tag: 34:00

#11: sam doesn’t want to kiss the hot ghost woman. 

time tag: 35:40

#12: sam crashes the impala into a building to stop himself being killed by a ghost.

time tag: 36:45

#13: sam goes back to stanford and lives a normal life. just kidding. his girlfriend dies and he rejoins dean on the road. that last bit’s not a transgression, but trying to live a normal life is.

time tag: 40:15

#season 1 #01x01 #spn #i feel like the very first transgression where I give baby sam grief for being a baby should establish the tone of this! #but just to be clear: this is satire. acab. nobody has the right to touch you without your consent. #sam winchester #dean winchester

[princessnijireiki]

sometimes draining to realize you were raised by somebody who is very self hating & sort of aspirationally aligns themselves with people who spit on or exploit your heritage (or wanted you dead???) + who also is so dissatisfied in their personal lives that 1) they also lie about YOU in order to construct a farce of self love & self respect, bc a self they love & respect cannot include your existence (or at least you as you are are NOT sufficient & will never be good enough without the lies built up around you) + 2) they rarely to never claim their ACTUAL heritage & family & truth except in private AND either to scam some benefit or profit from claiming it to the right people, or to complain about it & use it as an excuse for why their life has been held back.

AND they're not the first generation in their family to do so.

like bro... I should technically be WAY more warped than I am. the fact that relatively speaking I am fucking normal rather than a similarly self loathing bootlicker & pathological liar is a LOT to process. the fact that I'm part of GEN ONE of NOT being like this for the last hundred years of a solid quarter of my bloodline is INSANE.

not to be like, "woe... am I damaged goods?" but just like, DAMN, yk? I grew up with somebody who raised me, a black man who refused to identify as black until EYE was in my 20s/he was like 50, putting like al jolson & elvis & THE NAZIS on a pedestal? I mean, on the one hand, it goes to show you that people who behave like freaks this way can't blame their upbringing on how they turned out, AND that an ounce of critical thinking + ANYBODY else in your life acting normal can offset a LOT of bullshit, but what the fuck is that about? hello???

anyway. every so often I just remember that shit and I feel like moving forward in life I'll need a "go out and get a smoothie to cope" fund because whenever these moments come up it's like damn now I just gotta sit alone in my house with this information & do dishes like this is regular? un fucking real.

#fwiw the other side of the family is NOT okay either but the fact that all i have to do is look 1 generation up & see shit like this... #my great grandpa FOUGHT NAZIS meanwhile my HALF JEWISH dad is just like ''they were strategic geniuses in such beautiful coats'' #HUH?????????????? HUH?????????????? #i did not log enough teenage deadbeat mallrat years to accrue the bewildered disdain allotment for this because what the fuck #like i have to face all this at 30 & sober & BROKE? not cool man.

[realhankmccoy]

My friend Jim told me my gothic muscle Jesus look is really hot. Is it? I feel like I've seen better days, but I could just be down on myself from bankers and lawyers calling me trash so much... you know, the spoiled brat classes, born into money, so pretty much every normal person is a shitstain to be used and abused to them. You do, rarely, meet a nice one... but I'd say all the noble castes and classes of the world need to be overthrown by those of us with the muscle, the ones who actually would win in a fistfight, the ones who truly work with our biceps for a living.

I am, of course, against all fistfights, except the sexy ones for fun with other dudes. Just saying that if I were a straight guy from the oppressed classes, it wouldn't be surprising if I'd have thrown a punch to the jaw of some dude by now, all because some snotty spoile banker or lawyer made me feel like my life is so hopeless and relative poverty is so terrible that I might as well throw it away.

God, Trump is such an ugly, stupid fucking pig. I can't believe folks honestly wanted that as president instead of even me, ha. So fucking stupid, brainwashed and bootlicking of people. Get a clue. At least Bush knew Spanish and didn't hate the fuck out of Native Americans, aka Latinos. But your hatred is what changed the paradigm over to extra oppression on the natives, you spoiled brat fuckfaces with the vomit Stay Puft looks. Europeans are so much more attractive than Americans. It's hard to want to go back, so I'm not. Why should I, I don't have to ever go back if I don't want, prob.

What was the point of this post, again?

Oh yes, I've been asking people how they think I should apportion my time. But I know better than to ask tumblr at this point... folks are as apathetic as it comes. I reached out to people with the questions... But still... suggestions are welcome. Any suggestions. I swear nobody takes charge of fucking anything in life. I always have to do it, which means I'm probably the alpha, or the nanny, or some fucking thing. There's some good little steers on Instagram with a million followers to flex for, but they don't do anything. It's traumatic and epic for them to even go to Canada because they're such installed components, like sink fixtures, and have no clue what to do with anyone. Somebody like Joss Mooney is getting stuff done, these guys who are transforming lives with their services. But hey yo, I sure don't have the fucking patience to mould your body. I'm more into tampering with your mind. Breaking the seal is a great start, but that causes a panic attack in a lot of the blue bloods because they've never developed any exposure or immunity to microbes before.

Fucking flagellation, bros.

#my life with the thrill kill kult #thrill kill kult #Youtube

[itsclydebitches]

(1/?) I'm curious as to your thoughts: was there a good way to write Ironwood as CRWBY intended him, 'fundamentally good person shows signs of instability and a worrying commitment to the idea that everyone should be willing to make a sacrifice as long as he is, takes this to unacceptable extremes when a great sacrifice is called for'? I've been reading all these posts that actually make it seem like a coherent character arc, and I don't consider myself a 'bootlicker' or someone who

Always happy to explain my thoughts! Though Ironwood’s situation is incredibly complicated and I’m tired as hell right now, so apologies if this attempt at working through things is more than a little messy… 

You’re right that Salem herself fundamentally changes the heart of the “well-meaning but ultimately misguided general” setup. Meaning, normally when we see a character like Ironwood, someone military-minded and driven by pragmatism, whoever it is they’re fighting against is us. It’s a war against other humans, or at least another intelligent (and sympathetic) form of life. Ironwood’s attempted archetype here relies heavily on the assumption that he’s taking things too far when there are better, more peaceful options open to him. No, general, don’t nuke all those people even though we’re at war with them because they’re still people. No, general, don’t blow up the alien ship even though you perceive them as a threat because they feel just like we do and I, the protagonist, believe that I can make peace with them. Though RWBY doesn’t have quite that same conflict—everyone agrees that Salem needs to go—it’s nevertheless worth acknowledging that his archetype is built on a history of unsympathetic characters… who are unsympathetic because they’re choosing to harm others for needless reasons. The hardened military general is an antagonist because he takes the violent route either due to greed or a lust for power. He makes sacrifices not because they are truly necessary, but because they’re easier or better for him. He believes that this violence/sacrifice is the only answer when the audience can clearly see another, better route. Think characters like Miles Quaritch from Avatar whose goal is, ultimately, to force a peaceful people out of their home/outright kill them in order to gain access to a natural resource on their world. Even if there is, broadly speaking, a “good” reason for doing this (humanity needs that resource to solve their energy crisis) there’s no confusion that his reasons are far from justified and that he’s taken things way too far. Not only because gaining resources is, you know, not a reason to kill people, but also because Jake Sully, our hero, provides him with alternative routes that he then rejects. These people are peaceful. We can negotiate with them… but Quaritch says no. 

So this is, broadly speaking, the archetype Ironwood and Team RWBY are thrust into. He’s the general supposedly taking things too far and they’re the heroes standing in his way. Problem is, RWBY’s enemy isn’t a sympathetic, potential victim. The grimm are literally mindless beasts and Salem is a classic Big Bad. She might have a tragic backstory now, but that hasn’t impacted how we read her as a threat. She isn’t another group of humans we should be making peace with. She’s not an alien race who we just have to extend a hand to. Defeating her—in a literal way—is thus far the only possible route and that undermines the archetype Rooster Teeth wants to chuck Ironwood into. He can’t be the cold-hearted military man choosing violence over peace when peace is simply not an option.

So we have a setup where every single one of Ironwood’s decisions is automatically both sane and justified because there is an immortal grimm queen trying to kill them. And she cannot be reasoned with. Extra security? No duh you want that. Suspicious of others? No shit Beacon fell precisely because it was infiltrated. Making sacrifices? What else is there to do except roll over and let Salem win? The options presented to him were “make sacrifice” or “everyone absolutely dies” so no, in this case the sacrifice is not deemed “unnecessary” and therefore something that we can criticize him for. Ironwood is not fighting a powerful but also potentially sympathetic enemy, inviting a perspective that his actions may be too severe in the face of that threat. Salem isn’t a Darth Vader who is going to turn back to the light when she sees her child. She isn’t a Sauron with a convenient Achille’s heel (as of yet anyway) thereby inviting an easy solution that doesn’t risk too many lives. The grimm are not the Klingons who, if you just take the time to know their culture, you can find common ground with. They and Salem are more akin to the Borg: a relentless, unreachable, immortal force that seeks only to destroy everything. She is RWBY’s devil and thus by default any question along the lines of, “But should Ironwood really have..?” is answered with an emphatic “Yes.” Because the only other option is total annihilation for the entire world, not just the one city you’re worried about. RWBY’s villain is such a massive, unarguable threat that the setup doesn’t allow debate in regards to what’s going “too far.” By having Team RWBY and Oscar parrot those views from other stories they just come off as sounding naive, foolish, and arrogant. Salem is not an enemy that you just need to try really hard to beat in battle. She is currently immortal. She is not someone you just need to talk down. She will annihilate you and laugh while doing it. “Unnecessary sacrifice” only exists in a world where you have a chance of taking another route with success. RWBY hasn’t provided that route yet. 

Thus, most military archetypes don’t have to face the level of threat that Ironwood does. In fact, their status as antagonists largely relies on the belief that the threat isn’t severe enough to warrant whatever horrific order they’re giving. Rooster Teeth has written a character based on tropes that do not work within the scenario they’ve set up… and a good chunk of the fandom aren’t critical enough viewers to see the disconnect. They just watch that collection of tropes and characteristics and fill in the blank based on what they know from the rest of popular culture. Like a really messed up Mad Lib. “Ah! I recognize this character! He’s a military man. He’s strict at times. He’s taking control of a situation and achieving that with an army. This is all a Bad Thing and I know that because I’ve seen it a thousand times before in a thousand different stories. The powerful military man is the antagonist and the heroes are the ones who fight for the marginalized!” And thus the viewer is encouraged to prioritize that assumed reading over the actual context of this particular story. Few are willing to admit that “Leaving marginalized people behind because otherwise we will all be slaughtered” is not the same situation as something like “Outright attacking a marginalized people because I want something from them. Or abandoning them because I just don’t care.” They see the basic, surface characteristics and think they know the answer to this story. Team RWBY = good and Ironwood = bad. 

That’s only the tip of the problem though. It’s a big problem, but literally every step of the way Rooster Teeth would need to change things if they actually wanted to give Ironwood this arc in a way that made any sense: 

They would need to change how they portray Mantle going all the way back to Volume 4 because we knew straight out of the Fall that Mantle has had a lot of problems for a very long time. That’s not all on Ironwood—it’s not possible for it all to be on Ironwood—and thus it’s neither correct nor fair to paint Mantle’s dystopian-like state as his doing, as we saw at the beginning of Volume 7. 

They would need to convince us that Ironwood is actually paranoid/being overly cautious, rather than what we actually have which is… completely logical safety measures against everything that has done them in up until now. Everything Ironwood implements is in direct response to something that killed people or felled a school. 

The story would need to give Ironwood better solutions that he then rejects. Obviously this is crucial for the leaving Mantle situation. As I’ve said numerous times before, you can’t paint Ironwood as a horrific person for following the only plan they had. “Stay to die” is not a plan. If they wanted him to read as in the wrong for leaving, Team RWBY needed to give him a good reason to stay, one that doesn’t automatically equal everyone dying, especially when Ironwood’s own solution is “save at least some.” However, this also needed to happen in regards to Amity. The fandom keeps pointing out that Ironwood took resources from Mantle, painting it as this cruel and awful thing… without acknowledging the necessity of that. Or that our heroes likewise demanded that he finish. Ruby is equally responsible for taking those resources. Again, if they want to paint Ironwood as unhinged and cruel in his decision, they need to provide him with alternatives: “Hey, general! Why don’t we just use these other resources instead?” “No. They must come from Mantle.” or “Hey, general! We’re just going to let you know that finishing Amity is fundamentally useless because you can’t defeat Salem with a giant army. Maybe stop taking resources now.” “No. I don’t believe you. I’m going to forge ahead with my own plans, ignoring this new information.” Neither of these things happened. We weren’t told that there was another way to build Amity and Ironwood wasn’t told that his plan was flawed… making his decision both necessary and justified, given what he knew. To my mind, Team RWBY is far more responsible for Mantle’s state since they encouraged that drain on the resources while knowing the use of those resources wouldn’t achieve what Ironwood assumed it would. Which, while failing to paint them as heroic, likewise undermines Ironwood’s supposed villainy. Why do we hate him for this again…. when Ruby is doing the exact same thing…? 

They would need to have established, all the way back in Volume 2 and onward, a personality that allows for him to go to certain extremes, such as shooting Oscar. I don’t have the energy to dive into this one in great detail right now, but suffice to say the fandom has decided to horrendously miss-characterize Ironwood in an effort to justify an illogical action based on what we know about him. I’ve seen the “He once said he would shoot Qrow!” so often I’m literally astounded by the reach there, but I’m also seeing a lot of “Ironwood has never shown any sympathy towards children!” Which… okay. The absence of interaction is not proof of hatred. Meaning, having watched seven volumes in which Ironwood doesn’t interact with kids only tells us we don’t know how he feels about kids, not that he obviously despises them. A lack of scenes wherein Ironwood expresses his adoration for everyone under the age of twenty is not evidence for dislike, nor more than making a claim like, “Well Ruby obviously hates pears” would be. Why would she hate pears? Because we’ve never once, ever, heard her say that she likes them. She’s never spoken positively about them. Never stood up for them! So clearly they’re her least favorite food. Sound ridiculous? Same situation here. To say nothing of the fact that we do see Ironwood interacting positively with kids, if we define “kids” as “characters significantly younger than him.” We watched him desperately protect large groups of students at Beacon. Stand up for Weiss at the party despite how much that threatened his political situation with Jacques (as seen in Volume 7). Send Yang an expensive new arm purely because he knows what it’s like to lose a limb. The narrative has gone out of its way to demonstrate how kind and compassionate Ironwood is, all of which would need to be changed—if not outright erased—to give us someone capable of shooting Oscar like that. 

The fact that the fandom chooses to ignore characterization doesn’t mean it’s not there and that characterization, at its core, fundamentally hinders the “military man goes off the deep end” archetype. Because Ironwood is nothing like his parallels in popular culture. His situation is not one that he can resolve peacefully. He was not given better options that he then rejected. He has never been a cold, manipulative, cruel person. Honestly, if they wanted to write this arc then they needed someone other than James Ironwood living in the world of RWBY. We’d need a different kind of war and a different character introduced all those volumes ago. Because as it is, the story Rooster Teeth wanted to tell simply isn’t a story fit for the Ironwood and the Remnant they created. 

#rwby #rwby volume 7 #rwby volume 7 spoilers #mymetas #smallerthanzer0