#Hamilton vs. Burr

[deadpresidents]

Did Alexander Hamilton really endorse Jefferson over Burr as portrayed in the Hamilton musical?

Yes, Hamilton absolutely did endorse Thomas Jefferson over Aaron Burr for the Presidency in 1800 -- and pretty much in language as direct as we hear in the play. In a December 24, 1800 letter to Gouverneur Morris, Hamilton wrote:

"Jefferson or Burr? -- the former without all doubt. The latter in my judgment has no principle public or private -- could be bound by no agreement -- will listen to no monitor but his ambition; & for this purpose will use the worst part of the community as a ladder to climb to perman[en]t power & an instrument to crush the better part. He is bankrupt beyond redemption except by the resources that grow out of war and disorder or by a sale to a foreign power or by great peculation. War with Great Brita[i]n would be the immediate instrument. He is sanguine enough to hope every thing -- daring enough to attempt every thing -- wicked enough to scruple nothing. From the elevation of such a man heaven preserve the Country!"

Ever the shit-stirrer, Hamilton helpfully closed his letter to Morris by adding, "Make any discreet use you think fit of this letter."

And, just in case that letter got lost in the mail or Gouverneur Morris didn't get the point, Hamilton wrote another letter to Morris two days later (December 26, 1800), emphasizing that:

"...as the least of the two evils...Jefferson ought to be preferred to Burr.

I trust the Federalists will not finally be so mad as to vote for the latter [Burr]. I speak with an intimate & accurate knowledge of character. His elevation can only promote the purposes of the desperate and proflicate. If there be (a man) in the world I ought to hate it is Jefferson. With Burr I have always been personally well. But the public good must be paramount to every private consideration. My opinion may be freely used with such reserves as you shall think discreet"

So, yeah, that definitely happened and you can see why Burr might have felt disrespected.

[ourtalechara]

Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson are the kinds of forces of nature that will tear up anything in their path. Trees by the roots are ripped from the ground and flung into nearby houses, obliterating them and throwing their remains into the whirlwind. Chaos and destruction reign over whatever unlucky souls happen to be in the way of their goal.

George Washington and James Madison are the kinds of forces of nature that will stand unflinchingly in the center of it all and refuse to budge.

[riri-loves-cats]

GUYS so I was watching Hamilton the other day, and I noticed this really cool detail:

In Lauren’s duel with Lee, Burr is Lee’s second as we all know

and later, in Burr’s duel with Hamilton, The guy who was playing Lee is now playing William P Vanness (Burr’s 2nd)

I js thought that was a really cool detail

[problematic-president]

Jedams vs Hamburr

[birdstooth]

Omg whhyyyy tho 😫😫😫

I truly felt for Burr in this moment lmao

[breitzbachbea]

God I love enemies and I love hatred Blease Blease tell me about the hatred I’m beghing on me knees

Oh, where to START. Charlie and Robert have their own playlist, which I should remake on youtube so that I can share it. Big fan of "Hated You from Hello" by Downplay and "You're Going Down" by Sick Puppies being both sided, "Know It All" by Fivefold is so, so good for when Robert gets his revenge for Sicily in a later story and in turn "Thank You for Hating Me" by Citizen Soldier is a great Charlie song once he has had enough. Those aren't all songs on the playlist, just a little overview.

So yeah, these two and just how deep and visceral the hatred of each other runs is very important to me. Started with the homophobia, but even when Robert gets better, Charlie just ... still thinks he is the most annoying person on the planet. And Charlie in turn is never going to let Robert forget what he did to him, because if he has to live with the trauma, so has Robert.

However, the English are very good at making enemies and Robert in particular manages to be unpopular. Literally nothing funnier in the world than a good old Tarielle/Railey love triangle where Tahir is incidental. This isn't about him, this is about Robert and Arielle not wanting to share air to breathe. Read my latest drabble and see it in action. Or this Lego thing I wrote - Hugo isn't very in character, but the Robert and Arielle bitching is just. on point.

OH MY GOD, SPEAKING OF HUGO. LEMME JUST. I think those drawings by @c0ffinated speak for themselves. Very sad I cannot share the nsfw ones that make the point in the best way.

(First one is Hugo eating Alois' protein snacks in the middle of the night after a one-night stand. One night stand number 238493. And the fourth one is the Live German Reaction to the third one, because that's Katta and Selim. Katta says "This is such a shitfest here, I love it" and Selim "Got something of Asi-Tv" (<- slang for German reality TV. Think TLC kind of stuff). )

Alois is being an asshole about Hugo's weight, Hugo is being an asshole about Alois' lost legs, it's a good look on neither of them, somehow they still end up fucking all the time. I don't get it. Neither does Massoud, the poor soul in the second picture trying to help with Alois' leg. Leo thinks this shit is hilarious, like the Germans, Nathan (aph switzerland) doesn't have much of an opinion, Hugo tries to behave in front of Lilli, but oh my god, these two are driving Roderich nuts. He can handle Hugo on his own, but as soon as Alois is also in the picture .... it goes against all of his sensibilites. PLEASE read this Hugois One Shot, I am so proud of this one, it encapsulates all that is wrong with them so well. Also, if God wants it, I will actually get to write another one shot where Hugo is REALLY nasty. Has a breakfast brawl at the end. It's gonna be so good once it's done.

Okay, but to circle back to Robert, another petty feud he has with @swabianmapley's OC Siggy, who is one of the Icelanders. It's not really as intense, because it's for ... incredibly dumb and petty reasons and the Icelanders aren't high on the English priority list, but it deserves a mention. As do another two of Jani's OCs, the former right hand of Emil's dad, Rúnar, who did a runner when the old man wandered off into the ice, never to be seen again. But before that even he dated one of the Icelandic subordinates, Þóra, and they had an incredibly poor breakup. Hates his guts even before he left them all hanging and god knows, Leifur's other right hand Alex now has more than a few good reasons to throw him into a volcano if he ever showed up again, but Þóra would strangle the motherfucker on the spot if he showed his face in Iceland again. Also, while we are at the Icelanders - Leifur, Emil's dad, and Ansgar, Lukas' dad, never really got along. Business partners, yes, but also business enemies, never really being cool with one another. And then the sister of Leifur's wife moved to Oslo and his wife asked Leifur if he couldn't help her find work. So he asked Ansgar for a favour and whoops, they got married and now they are brothers in law. Whoops.

Okay, last Robert one, but since the Spaniards and the English also have bad blood (and Arthur is SO smug about it while Antonio is so passionate about kicking his face in), Robert and Diego don't get along. Robert usually is more eager about the fights because he's an adhd hothead like that, but only because Diego is a soldier doesn't mean he want to punch out his teeth any less. "Friends" by Sixlights is a great song - the chorus for them in general and the verses for the fucked up AU version where they dated and had a bad breakup.

On the bigger playing field, where there also little animosities nestled into the bigger ones like matryoshka dolls - The Empires of course don't get along. The English have beef with the Russians and Spaniards, the Spaniards are pissed with the Turks and vice versa, while the Turks also can't stand the Russians. Also - the Austrians and the Turks. Not sure where I stand on the Austrians and the Russians yet. But yeah, love the idea that Charlie and Harry have a conversation on a big event whether or not "their Kurdish friend" (Dilan) just doesn't like blondes, because she's bitching with Salomé (who, much like Francesco however, thinks personal grudges are uninteresting and also is the horniest lesbian on the planet who wishes Dilan wasn't straight), Alois, Robert and Viktoriya. Their convo also includes "Okay, but she gets along with the Dutch lass." "She's no natural blonde though." "Neither is Salomé." "... point taken."

Oh yeah, while we are at the Dutch: It's not an ACTIVE beef, they aren't really out here hating each other on a deep personal level, but both Nathan and Gavin resent the other AND that rotten Dutchman for all the money they are sitting on. Nathan and Gavin do a lot of banking and related illegal stuff, so they are direct competition. Tim doesn't care about either of their bs, he'd do business with them if the price was right. But, quote from an RP I had with Jani, by Tim about Gavin: "Some people like holding grudges more than they like making money."

Who else is there ... I mean, I absolutely love a good ScotFruk tug of war. Gavin and Arthur inheriting the nemesis relationships from their fathers, each of them want power and influence on the isles and then Arthur happens to on-off date Gavin's ex-boyfriend. And the Scot just can't help, even if he is not actively in love with someone anymore, he will always love all his sweethearts. Besides, the French are friends! François is a friend! And he deserves better than this cruel and petty Englishman! Meanwhile, Arthur is a jealous little bitch who can't properly express his love for Fran, but also can't stand the thought that the Scot puts his finger not only on his sphere on influence but the one man he loves. Bitchfest supreme.

Speaking of that, I have a note in my notebook for the next chapter of IP I will edit that says "Can anyone ask more about Lovi so that Michele can call him bitch boy unlimited". The fact that Michele hates Francesco, too, out of a mix of jealousy over not being the biggest siren in the room if Franci is there and because he doesn't buy his friendly shtick, plus he's afraid that Francesco could see behind his mask. But we are here for Lovi and Michele, which is a very ironic hate. In the hetaverse at least they are united in their mutual dislike for Feli and all the other Northerners. but in LFLS, Feli falls a bit to the wayside (though Michele has not much respect or love for him either) and it's all about these two. I think, aside from the fact that they also inherited a generational enmity, Lovino feels entitled to the land Michele is sitting on and Michele is fiercely protective of his independence ... aside from all that, they are too close for comfort. They see in each other who they could be, maybe all they should be but aren't, maybe all the sides of themselves they like the least.

... Yeah! I think that's a good start! :)

[beauzos]

ok so The Boy Generals is amateurish but i actually like it. Wesley Merritt is the funniest foil to Custer ever. i had no idea he was there when Custer 'pranked' his wife by pretending he got murdered by Native warriors. i think Merritt showed great restraint not strangling him to death for scaring everyone after a fucked up hunting expedition

[samanthajameswriter]

Duel At Dawn╽The Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr Rivarly: July 11th, 1804

“Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have is this. When I have a subject in mind, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.” ― Alexander Hamilton Continue reading Untitled

[dragoninahumancostume]

85 things I love in Hamilton:

When a line of a song repeats on another song but slightly different or the exact same in a slightly different context or the exact same with the same context ("Look around look around" by Eliza vs by Alex, "I'm helpless" in Helpless vs Non-stop vs Say no to this)

The way it sounds like Lin is spitting on the P's in "My time's uP, wise uP, eyes uP"

How everyone agrees that Lafayette let his hair loose after Yorktown and that if he put it on a ponytail again Hamilton would react the same way Doofenschmirtz does with Perry and his hat

Everyone seems to agree Laurens should go running to be with Angelica, Eliza and Maria when they sing "Me? I loved him"

Daveed Diggs

The historical inaccuracy making songs even better (example: "How the sausage gets made" sung in 1790's when sausages were brought in the 1800's. Philip dying before the election of 1800 and in July when he actually died in November of 1801. Burr being Charles' second.)

Being able to tell which song is which even when they start off the same (alexander hamilton, guns and ships and winter's ball) by slight differences

"Can we agree that duels are dumb and immature?" *sends a letter wanting to duel* "All he had to do was die. We ought give it a try." *kills Alex*

"I was chosen for the constitutional convention! :D"

Aaron's voice and expressions

"Wheeeee!" -Charles Lee

Animatics vs The actual musical (example: the king dancing in the animatic, him standing with a death stare in the musical)

Hamilton being happy he finally has friends

The dance in My Shot

Lafayette and Hercules dancing

Hercules showing off his pants

Lafayette flexing his muscles

John Laurens screaming passionately in the "shout it from the rooftops" part

Angelica's voice and expressions

John looking like he's checking Ham out

The difference between the musical and the studio recording, specifically the pauses that for me sound like they're trying to regain some breath to continue singing

Hercules as the flower girl

The foreshadowing (?) ("I may not live to see our glory" *dies*/ *doesn't count to ten in French* *dies because his opponent didn't count to ten*)

Peggy getting distracted by John in Schuyler Sisters

"my dog speaks more eloquently than thee"

"You don't have the votes ha-ha-ha"

Ham stopping his dance and fixing his jacket when Philip enters in Helpless

King George literally spitting in You'll be back

*Philip dies, Ham is mourning* "Can we get back to politics 🙄. Who you gon' vote for?"

When they're waiting for their turn on the song (Ham behind the king before Right Hand Man. John and Laf on the stairs behind Washington in "Your excellency, sir")

Washington's voice

The backup dancers they're literally so good

Ham: making a plan. Hercules: BRAH

Ham pushing Laf away so he could talk with Angelica

HAMILTON WROTE THE OTHER 51

[thebreakfastgenie]

wait does Dick Cheney shooting a man count? it was an accident and the guy lived and everything. but the guy did apologize. to Dick Cheney. who shot him. in the face.

Sarah I humbly request ur top 5 funniest US political scandals -ypq

okay so caveat that there are niche scandals that are funnier I'm just drunk and don't remember

Watergate - everything about it is so fucking stupid

Clinton impeachment - also a lot of stupid decisions here, the president saying "it depends on what the meaning of is is," the Republicans having to can Newt as speaker because he was having an affair with a staffer too and it looked bad, having to ditch one candidate to replace him because he was also having an affair, and finally landing on Hastert (who is an actual pedophile), just the part where Republicans were so sure public opinion would come around but people mostly wanted to stop hearing explicit details about the president's sex life.

idk if this counts as a scandal but the Army McCarthy hearings - if for no other reason than opposing counsel forcing the word "fairy" into the conversation as a microaggression against Roy Cohn

Iran-Contra - the guy who set the whole thing up was an insane grifter/arms dealer and no one even knows for sure who he really was. He took a polygraph and failed everything including his name which might be because polygraphs are bullshit but also he could totally have been lying about his name. might have been lying about his nationality. probably was lying about everything else. definitely was lying about how he could totally get those hostages out of Lebanon by selling weapons to Iran. we sold the weapons through Israel (they wanted to prolong a war between Iran and Iraq so both would be too busy to attack them, they were fine with people dying) and one time they showed up in Iran with a giant Star of David on them. this only got linked to the Contras in Nicaragua when Ollie North and company realized this operation which rescued net zero hostages (one guy did get released but someone else got taken hostage immediately) was turning a profit and used it to solve the problem of "we want to fund a right-wing paramilitary but Congress won't let us :(" also one of the other arms dealers involved was Adnan Kashoggi, uncle of murdered journalist Jamal Kashoggi, and he owned a yacht that was a notorious party boat and where Queen once attended a party. they wrote a song about it called Kashoggi's ship. there were rumors that it was an orgy but it probably wasn't. several people have owned the yacht since including, for a while, Donald Trump.

Alger Hiss and the secret pumpkin - some people thought Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers were gay and these people included Richard Nixon. also there was a pumpkin involved (used to hide microfilm)

honorable mention to Obama wearing a tan suit

whatever Trump has going on - it's gonna be even funnier in like 20 years when we all have some distance also maybe he'll have died in prison by then

[deadpresidents]

On July 11, 1804 (exactly 220 years ago today), Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey.

While the Burr-Hamilton Duel is obviously one of the most famous incidents in American history, it's important to take a moment and realize just how insane this event actually was. Burr -- the incumbent Vice President of the United States -- shot and killed Hamilton -- a fellow Founding Father, former Treasury Secretary, and architect of the American financial system. The Vice President of the United States was charged with murder in New Jersey and his home state of New York and avoided being arrested and put on trial because he went back to Washington, D.C. so that he could perform his Constitutionally-prescribed duty to preside over the U.S. Senate for the remainder of his term. While Vice President Burr was under indictment for MURDER, he calmly and efficiently presided over the only impeachment trial of a Supreme Court Justice in American history! Don't let anyone ever convince you that American politics hasn't always been batshit crazy.

[gyubby99]

@disneyanddisneyships oh i just thought of a VERY angsty idea

What if there was another time Mal confronted Alastor in the au where he cheated? But this time, it was for him letting Theo go to a duel at nineteen??

Like what if Mal, during that, turned into her full demon form and she was almost unrecognizable because of it? Like she was a fucking wild animal because she lost control of everything? Like my characterization of Mal is that she is holding back a lot of grudge in her life. She was a murderer in life so if she gets angry, she forgets control of herself and just loses it. She has a lot of pent up anger to those men she killed that was probably sent down there.

And she loved Theo. Emma was hurt as well. (In this au i think they are dating ok im changing things in my head) and Theo was too sweet for hell. He deserved to be in heaven. But he died before he got to do that.

Not to mention aponi..

A mother's heartbreak is one thing i wouldn't even wish upon my worst enemy.

Aponi was so, SO broken. That boy was all she had after al cheated.

So mal, knowing all of this, had a lot of rage in her.

She was determined to dethrone him.

She could stand a chance, but Alastor has more experience. She knows that.

But she's still willing to try

So she transforms in this demon form, her eyes glowing. She forgot about how she used to be friends with him. She set that aside because he's nothing but a prick to her now.

And there's a fight scene in my head where Mal in her full demon form just flies towards him, pinning him against the wall as she basically drools, and then alastor pushes her off, still trying to reason with her because he still loves aponi and knows that mal is her friend.

Then yk that Ray vs. Dr. Facilier's shadows scene before he died?

Al charges his shadows at her only for her to kick them or some sort of thing like that because her legs glow and stuff (also she fights them off with her eyes)

Then she charges against Alastor again.

Alastor then pulled the whole tentacles thing but she was quick as a bug. One tentacle caught her, but she cut it off, still focusing on Alastor.

Alastor felt a little.. nervous around her for the first time. Her rage was.. interesting.

Entertaining, even.

He was done reasoning with her and decided to just turn into his demon form as well.

Now Mal would've been scared, but in her mind was aponi's face when she collapsed on the ground crying, Emma locking herself up in the room, and more importantly, Theodore.

She knew once he was serious she wouldn't stand a chance

But she felt like for those three, she could atleast try.

Then another fight sequence. Mal does the "eye trick" but it never blinded him, it just sent him tumbling back a little. So, quick as a bug she took a chance

But Alastor was quicker and summoned a holy knife in his hands, but it wasn't to kill her. It was to scare her. She can heal from HIS attacks, so she was fearless. She's a sinner. Dead alone can't kill the dead. But with a holy equipment, you can.

.....but mal was too blinded by her anger like a wild animal lost in control and still drove straight to him, and Al, holding the knife, had stabbed her. In the gut, I think. She shrieks in pain, but still wrapped her hand around his neck. But it was no use. It was holy.

But Alastor still was in his full form, grinning as he'd won.

...not until Aponi walked into the scene. Then Al realized what he'd done.

He caused her another heartbreak.

But what was he meant to do?

Like, not completely hamilton but kinda following the story but with a very angsty twist i made up in my head lmfao

Also to add: this is one of the main parts of the reason why Vox killed Alastor. Cause Vox as both burr and jefferson... would be a lil weird because alastor endorsed vox to win against.. vox! So i think Your Obedient Servant would be very more interesting if this is what drove vox to kill alastor >:)

To each their own, though but this is my own lol

[sapphic-agent]

You know what Hazbin needs more of musical wise? More serious Vs Duets, cause it's less gag songs had been either solos (Poison and All for Love) assemble pieces (You didn't Know, Finale) or amicable solos (both versions of More than Anything and Whatever it takes)

Like don't get me wrong- I love the more gag-focused Vs, I think they are alot of fun, but GOD one of the most beautiful part about musicals is when two characters with completely opposite beliefs argue via singing, the melody intensifying or completely shifting between the parts (that is why the best part of You didn't Know was Lute and Adam's arguing back. And of course in Respectless the way Carmilla sings that "you and the Vees are unmain and uniform!" With the melody shifting as she gets more desesperate- that is some good stuff)

Imagine Lute and Vaggie fighting once again but this time having a hate filled duet! Emily and Sera's extension of You didn't Know but this time with even more tension cause Em saw that Sinners ARE salvable?? A more serious reprise of Stayed Gone as Vox starts to be an actual threat for Alastor's plans- omg a sadder version of More than Anything between Charlie and Lilith that slowly becomes am escalating argument?? But I think my favorite option on a twisted way (and one actually proposed by the VAs) would be a Heathers'-esque duet between Angel and Valentino, like "you were meant to be mine" from the mentioned Heathers that constantly changes tones depending of whenever Val is trying to manipulate/love bomb Angel or showing his true colors as Angel's part is just filled with hurt and anger. Kind of like how Poison is deceivingly Pop-like till the end to demonstrate the way Angel (don't) copes with his reality, this could also sounds initially as a regular love ballad that slowly morphs until something much more sinister.

First of all, let me just say I'd LOVE a You Didn't Know reprise between Sera and Emily where they're arguing. This NEEDS to happen.

(I'm not kidding when I saw Emily has the potential to be the best written character in the show. Viv don't fuck this up for me)

Second of all, you're right about opposing views being great in songs/musicals. One of the best parts of Hamilton was how Hamilton and Burr were complete opposites. So whenever they interacted, their parts always clashed with one another. One of my favorite parts of Nonstop was when they were arguing over the Constitution (yes I was a Hamilton girlie I have no shame). Hazbin Hotel has a lot of opportunities to do this and really take their songs to the next level

[stillness-in-green]

On Directionality of Movement in BNHA (and the Neat Reversals)

(Take 2 on this post, which gave me fits trying to post it. Fingers crossed it works this time, and sorry for any vanishing posts, people who reblogged the original.)

This post was initially conceived back in December, when I first saw the home release covers for HeroAca’s Season 6.  They look like pretty standard stuff at first glance, but there was something about them that was very, very interesting: the direction the characters were moving.

(Hit the jump for an explanation spiced up with lots and lots of images from first American and then Japanese media.)

So, this is something that’s absolutely ubiquitous in visual media that a reader/viewer is probably never going to consciously register (at least without being told about it, as in, for example, film class or art school) because the emotional cues in play are intrinsically tied to a culture’s written language.[1]  To wit, because written English progresses from the left to the right, the subconscious association with rightward movement is forward progress.  Thus, in American media, be it stage, screen, or graphic panel when a character is moving from the left to the right, that directionality expresses forward movement, progress, agency, empowerment, righteousness, clear-mindedness, healthy ambition, heroism, and so forth.  Progress is towards the unturned page.

[1] The broader term to use to research this further is “linguistic relativity.”

The chase Furiosa initiates in Mad Max Fury Road spends most of the movie heading to the right, before Max convinces Furiosa to return to the Citadel, at which point, naturally enough, the chase reverses directions, spending the rest of the film heading left.   

Heroically smashing up cars in a rightward-facing direction, while people with less agency flee leftward.   

Elsa spends most of this number moving to the left, the same direction she fled out of Arendelle, but as her resolve grows, the choreography stars reversing, moving her on the z-axis more, and when she declares her resolve to never go back, donning her ice queen dress, her directionality immediately shifts to right-facing.  Even her turn at the end of the sequence, as she spins to walk back inside, is to the audience’s right.

Conversely, when a character is moving from the right to the left—against the flow of written English—that expresses return, backsliding, a lack of agency, powerlessness, wickedness, unhealthy ambition, difficulty, turmoil, and a generally dark or conflicted mentality.  Regression and turmoil lie in the direction of the page that’s already been turned.

Nina’s grasp on reality is beginning to fracture due to the multifaceted stresses she’s facing.   

Jean Grey is classically a heroic character, but you don’t get hero layouts when you’re giving in to dark urges and consuming suns.   

Scar will start trending rightward when Be Prepared really gets underway, that song being all about his future plans and proactive evil, but for the introductory bits, he’s firmly left-facing—as is also the case when he hurls Mufasa to his death.   

Of course, this doesn’t have to be a huge production!  Even something as simple as Charlie Brown walking rightward out to the doghouse to feed Snoopy then leftward to go back inside fits this idea of forward vs. backward motion.  (Compare this to, say, Dagwood, who runs leftward out his door to crash into the mailman every time he’s late for work.)

Naturally, you see this idea of directionality in confrontations as well.

In Hamilton, the title character is reflecting back on his past, the loved ones lost, his actions and the sort of legacy he will leave behind; he "throws away his shot" and dies.  Burr, conversely, is thinking of his living daughter, of his determination to survive; he fires, bullet moving from left to right, and will go on to survive the duel.   

Steven Q. Universe, facing the future despite the embodied wall of stasis and indifference standing in his way.   

The Wicked Witch, facing leftward, attempts to scare the Tin Woodsman and Scarecrow from progressing any further with Dorothy towards her destination, which they would do by following the yellow brick road extending rightward off the screen.   

You can see the reverse positioning—hero facing left, villain facing right—in cases like this, where the hero is making a dramatic defense against a villain in an attempt to stop their progression.   

This isn’t a hard and fast rule, obviously—visual dynamism alone will mean characters move around and change position!  It also doesn’t address movement on the y- and z-axes, nor does it necessarily account for e.g. mixed group compositions or romance scenes.  Also, more intangible things like power dynamics, command of the scene, and shifting character motivations can change who’s moving/facing what direction.  It’s not as basic as good-right, bad-left.  Nonetheless, it’s an interesting thing to watch for.

However, all of the above is reversed in Japanese media.  Written Japanese moves from the right to the left,[2] and therefore the mental association with forward progress/positivity versus regression/negativity is likewise with leftward versus rightward movement.  Following are some obvious examples from works other than BNHA (no live action films because I don’t have the familiarity to be comfortable picking individual shots from them):

[2] In its normal vertical orientation, which is what you’ll find in books and manga.  When arranged horizontally, as in scrolling marquees or banners or the like, usually it reads left-to-right, though this was not the case historically.

Anthy leaves her allegorical coffin, Ohtori Academy, in the final episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena.   

A twist on Sena’s signature move, the Devil Bat Ghost, in Eyeshield 21.  Check any sports manga you read and I would bet you good money that the protagonist team’s goal is on the left in most instances.   

Mima, pictured here Really Going Through It.  Note that Perfect Blue is the inspiration (to say the least) for Black Swan, above, but the psychological break is facing the other direction.   

Cure Dream shows us the mixed feelings of being the leader of the last PreCure team that regularly killed their enemies.   

So, that all laid out, let’s talk about how that looks in BNHA!

Like my other examples, the series is chock-full of examples, both of the usual forward-leftward, regression-rightward directionality, as well as a number of interesting plays against type.  Below, have a pile of examples!

BNHA, manga and anime both, gets piles of face-off shots like this, and in every one of them that I’ve seen, it’s the same general layout: heroes moving leftward, villains rightward.   

Deku attacks towards the turning page, while Muscular attacks against it.  Tokoyami, mired in turmoil and a dangerous loss of control over his power, also faces rightward.   

The specter of the past and the emblem of the future facing in the expected directions.   

Here’s a telling group composition: the Stoplight trio working hard for their futures, ditto the man who moves too fast, while Endeavor and Fuyumi face forward, still somewhat unsure of their current situation, while Natsuo is actively going against the flow.

Of course, it holds in the single character images as well, like so:

   Likewise, you can see the contrast even between images, like these two, announcing the anime adaptation of the Joint Training Arc and My Villain Academia, respectively:

Notice Shinsou, who's a major character in the arc but not quite a Hero Course classmate just yet, has his face turned away, back in the rightward direction.

You can see it more generally in the action itself, as well, not just the promo art.  Think of moments like Shigaraki emerging from the warp at USJ, the race during the Sports Festival, the direction of All Might’s final punch—as well as Shouto’s later victory over Dabi—at Kamino, the direction Gentle Criminal (and thus Deku following him) is heading when trying to reach UA, and so forth.

And then there are the interesting subversions.

Usually, in the days of their most pitched rivalry, the forward-moving Deku is moving left, while the tumultuous, stuck in the past Bakugou is moving right, but he drifts more leftward-facing as he gradually begins to get his head on straight, as in their fight post-Kamino.   

Shigaraki would be on the left if he were facing down Deku, but against All Might?  Not so much.  That makes this less a good versus evil stare-down and more a past versus future one.   

This incredibly fucking telling composition, which I’ll let speak for itself:

   Shigaraki, having the protagonist slot on loan for the duration of My Villain Academia, spends most of the Deika fight facing in the direction of the future, though Re-Destro interrupts this to take the left-facing when he’s challenging Shigaraki about having no vision.  Shigaraki’s pseudo-apotheosis has his facing right as he destroys everything around him (Re-Destro facing left as he sees his future rewritten and his burden removed), but by the time we come to the aftermath in the crater, Shigaraki is moving forward again.

   Interestingly, that does not necessarily follow for the rest of the League!  Dabi and Geten trade off facings through the whole arc, while Toga is mostly rightward facing against Curious, only getting the leftward advancement at the very tail end, once she transforms into Uraraka.  Twice’s doubles are often fairly leftward-aimed, as they’re driving the action forward, but Jin himself spends his big confrontation mostly facing outward, towards the reader, only getting much leftward-facing when he’s helping the unconscious Toga afterward.  Mr. Compress, not having a dedicated match-up, is all over the place.

Spinner, though?  Spinner is following Shigaraki both literally and in the sense that he spends the arc coming into his own.  Thus, even when Shigaraki’s gotten ahead of him, Spinner maintains the leftward aim.

   This can get more complicated than simple inversion, too!

For example,  Gigantomachia is leftward moving in, really, virtually every scene he’s in.  It really adds to how much he feels like a complete force of nature that, all throughout his earliest introduction, Kirishima’s flashback, MVA, and both war arcs, there are literally two (2) sequences in which he’s anything other than leftward-oriented for the bulk of his appearances, and both of them occur when he’s significantly struggling to make forward progress.

The first comes  when he’s trying to leave the Gunga Villa and facing steep resistance; this conveniently lets the kids  facing him (+Mount Lady, when she can get out ahead of him) heroically face left, like they usually do.  Once Machia clears the Villa battleground, however, the rest of his route to Jakku is smooth, even sailing, and shows him returned to his usual leftward orientation.

The second is once he’s actually reached Jakku and the sedative has started kicking in.  While he still gets a good number of leftward orientations, he’s tied down in a lot of them, and they’re mixed with more rightward and a considerable number of outward facings.

And that’s it, really.  Even escaping from the holding facility built around him and confronting AFO, he gets leftward facing, with that only reversing in the moment AFO strikes him down.

Unlike Machia, Deku facing stiff opposition gets to keep a leftward progression when he comes up against heroic opposition in his fight against his classmates.

Shigaraki and Overhaul, appropriately for their vying for control of the villainous future,  are constantly vying for the leftward facing position in their scenes/art spreads.

And then there’s the example that prompted this whole post—the home release covers of Season 6:

In other circumstances, I might chalk this up to the heroes being in the defending position—like Gandalf against the Balrog—but BNHA has not tended to do much with that visual; the heroes usually get to keep their heroic leftward facing even when they’re on the defense, as indeed is the case for all of Jakku that comes to mind!  Yet just this once, for the anime art, we can see the futility the heroes are up against, trying to stop, as Dabi so aptly put it, the future coming down the pipeline, where all the heroes’ lip service will be blown away by chaos.

Thanks for reading through this, all, and my apologies if I mixed up my right and my left anywhere! I hope you enjoyed the pictures, and that you have fun spotting the patterns in your future media intake!

[lokigodofaces]

okay, so i've never seen hamilton, i've only listened to the soundtrack, but lin-manuel miranda was so smart with it. with the elements being repeated over and over again in later songs all the fricking time (aaron burr's introductory narration, helpless, satisfied, not gonna throw away my shot, rise up, wait for it, the room where it happens, wouldn't it be nice to have ____ on our side, talk less smile more, history has its eyes on you, who lives who dies who tells your story, raise a glass to freedom, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now, eliza talking about the narrative, ten duel commandments, would be enough, i could go on and on), the great foreshadowing (the references to death and gun shots in the room where it happens, i'm not going to throw away my shot, burr & alexander being 2nds in the first duel shown, hamilton talking about dying in glory during the war, philip dying the same way alexander will, etc), the contradictions (burr is main narrator even though we know the whole time he will kill alexander, helpless being a romantic song but every time it's brought up later it's eliza being distressed, washington on his side vs hamilton on your side, jefferson & burr vs hamilton for a while and then jefferson & hamilton vs burr, burr thinking that duels are immature & then challenging hamilton to a duel, hamilton wanting to die in glory at war then dying alone in a duel, hamilton always talking about not throwing away his shot & then he threw away his shot at the end, etc).

it's just so good & so impressive & every time i think about it i'm even more impressed (i didn't connect the dots about alexander not throwing his away his shot & the end until writing this post!). & yeah, it's not like miranda chose for phillip to die or whatever, it's based on history. but he managed to take the real historical elements and portray them in a very interesting way with very interesting foreshadowing and contradictions. while writing banger music that had constant call backs.

i don't know, i've always mildly liked the soundtrack but recently i decided to listen to it all the way through which i had never done before & i'm impressed

[theoburrsvirginitybalcony]

Current bracket line up (Subject to change)

From my twisted mind

The Golden Mistress & Notorious Eliza Jumel

My Dear Hamilton

Hamilton and Peggy

Love Theodosia

The Hamilton Affair

I Eliza Hamilton

The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr

A Master Passion

Scandalmonger

My Theodosia

City of Liars and Thieves

Alex & Eliza (Trilogy)

A Loyal Little Maid

A Story of Old New York

Alexander Hamilton's Wife, A Romance of the Hudson

Hamilton's Lover

Hamilton's Choice

The Lace Widow

The Torment of Aaron Burr (Trilogy)

The Conquerer

Hamilton vs Burr a Werewolf Tale

Theodosia, Daughter of Aaron Burr

Hamilton's Battalion

The Amorous Intrigues of Aaron Burr

From the Submissions

Jefferson's Sword

Thomas Jefferson Survives

The Phipps Conspiracy