#but the revolution part is the one that fucks everything up. the political part already got totally frankenstein'ed by the changes

[marcusrobertobaq]

And the most interesting part... it's in Detroit xD

i have so many things to say about how the android revolution was handled in dbh, especially how most of the conflict was around markus’s choices to be violent or peaceful. idrk how to phrase it all but like. ugh it just bug me so much really is can all be said from the quote by assata shakur “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”

a huge part of the revolution is ‘we can’t stoop to the same level as the human’ and it makes me so mad. like yeah sure, murder and hurting ppl isn’t good. but protests for rights have never been peaceful. you don’t gain rights by being peaceful and perfect. i just hate it so much. plus, the game has obvious parallels to the civil rights movement (even if david cage says it’s not. it is. even if it wasn’t, this game is political no matter how u view it. the topic of rights and freedom will always be political) and to imply that the android revolution has to be near perfectly peaceful to succeed is crazy. girl does he think the civil rights movement was entirely peaceful?? someone put him and all the other writers in a god damn history class

not to mention markus. i think the writers saw him as like the equivalent to mlk jr, with the parallels to the civil rights movements and such, which is crazy considering they turned him into their Savior and led the whole movement. like. side eye. idk i love markus’s story, but i think the whole revolution and being turned into a savior robo jesus was so so bad and tone deaf (thank u david cage..) . and the whole revolution TOOK PLACE IN A WEEK. A WEEK. THATS INSANEE. A WHOLE REVOLUTION IN A WEEK IS INSANE. i understand that a game needs to end but we don’t need to see Every Single Second of the story!! spread it out over a month, give characters time to form relationships, let the plot thicken, let things get tense, let things simmer and develop!!! not everything needs to happen on screen!!! one of my biggest gripes about the game is its timeline </3

i know i just rambled a bunch but god it annoys me so much. markus’s story was done so wrong for so many reason, and as a queer person who’s largely interested in protests and movements for rights and such, it just makes me so mad how badly and idealistically it was created. it feels like it was written by humans, by OPPRESSORS, dreaming of a utopia where they are still good people. :/ which i suppose it IS in a way — but still u get my point

[bananaman-mp3]

[ID: A screenshot of a reblog with the blog's url and profile picture scribbled outin red that reads: "...conditionally and only if you never disagree with them? O.o"

the tags underrneath read: "#it never stops baffling me #how fandom turned these two into some idea of love #when the story is literall Naruto obsessign over Sasuke who is not interrsted #and then beating him almost to death because Sasuke doesn't think genocide is good pooitcal move actually #like FFS pls read more mangas people" End ID]

are you serious... if naruto only loved him conditionally why did he risk everything to save him, even when everyone else was set on killing him for being a traitor to konoha?

the guy threw his dignity away, in the eyes of everyone, to defend public enemy #1

he always called sasuke his friend, he never stated that he would only consider him a friend only if he returned as a konoha ninja.

loves him conditionally my ass.

and like- the idea that naruto can only love people that never disagree with him is so fundamentally against his character it's almost comical. if that were true naruto wouldve simply killed nagato. he wouldn't have tried to understand him or talk him out of it the way he did, once he heard his story. he wouldn't have tried talking to obito either. or even neji, konohamaru and inari, as small as those moments look in comparison.

the obsession part would make more sense, given how much he thought about him and wanted him back, to the point even his friends and the girl who was in love with sasuke thought it was too much.

yet the part about naruto beating sasuke up is... weird. they do realize naruto was fighting him because sasukes idea of a revolution meant to martyr himself for the sake of peace, the way his brother did, right?

they do realize that sasuke wanted to kill him at that point too, right? that it wasn't naruto beating a defenseless sasuke, right?

if anything, naruto was leaning on the defensive side and sasuke was the one trying to beat him up. but the were pretty fucking tied in terms of power. thats why he came close to killing sasuke (and viceversa. stop treating sasuke like a weakling.)

now, that doenst mean naruto is completely in the right to simply undermine or ignore konohas wrongdoing just because it only fuels the cycle of violence. naruto himself is victim of konohas shit system, and he has acknowledged many of the problems it caused. he promised to nagato that hed help amegakure when he became hokage.

of course you could argue that narutos methods may not be as effective for change as sasukes more aggressive plan, since systemic change is rarely if ever achievable by working within it. but im not that good with politics so i dont think im the best to talk about it, and that already goes beyond the topic here.

sasukes violent reaction to konohas mistreatment of the uchiha was completely understandable and anyone in his place wouldve don the same. lets make that clear here. i think saying he was highly justified is not a controversial take, at least here. konoha and the shinobi system ARE fucked up.

also, love that 'sasuke is not interested' bit. op, why did sasuke want to kill naruto? tell me.

me when im not interested:

so yeah i think that's a pretty inaccurate take on sasukes feelings towards naruto.

[apatheticintrovert]

A rant for the void.

I'm definitely too apathetic because whoever wins, does it actually matter?? We never actually have any control when it comes to our government. No president cares about us even though they're "elected" to serve us, the people. No matter what happens, the world will keep on spinning. Palestinians will continue to be bombed. The world will continue to be unjust and unfair.

In Texas ted cruz has already won to stay senator until 2031. Everything feels hopeless all the time. Norhing about this election feels any difference from the last 2, except that I can't find it in me to care. I've been saying this but the only good politician is a dead one and no matter who our president is, our country is (and has been, since its conception really) an active participant in genocide, war, voter interference in other countries, etc. Etc.) We are more informed and aware of the propaganda than ever and our government still gets away with whatever it wants with little to no repercussions.

There are still so many people that can't be bothered to care about the state of the world they live in and that's by design, we are largely struggling to make it to each new day in this capitalist hellscape we live in, in the middle of a recession, with education, resources, literal human rights being not only on the chopping block every election cycle but actively being taken away.

Which I get it... I know why Kopmala is "better" but I'm so sick of the "lesser of two evils" being our only options every fucking election. (I voted 3rd party and socialist for the first time ever this year because I didn't have another "lesser of two very obviously bad and genocidal evils" left in me) Even Obama who was so well liked and praised had record breaking levels of deportation, and there was the drone strikes...

Every election cycles feels like a slap in the face. We need a fucking revolution, that's genuinely our only hope imo. And Americans will never organize well enough to execute it. Too many people are satisfied with the status quo and not bothered by things like the ongoing genocide in Palestine and Congo and Sudan because it's not directly impacting them (to their knowledge) A large amount of the average Americans will not be bothered to care until it's too late and policy is actually directly impacting them. Idk. I'm just word vomiting at this point and it's just to vent for my own benefit.

It's weird to me how little I truly care tonight, especially compared to other people in my life and others I see online. Looking back at memories of innocent little 19 year old me voting in my first presidential election in 2016, I was so confident the country wouldn't vote for that man (who is arguably worse now and looking like he might win again) I was so much more uninformed about Hillary and politics and the us government.... I was up all night anxious and watching live coverage and checking my phone constantly. Now 8 years later, it's just like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ everything is awful and it will stay that way no matter who wins. We saw that well enough during this biden presidency. Not to mention how many people only vote during the presidential election cycle. As if all the others that impact is locally don't matter when they are oftentimes the most important and impactful, setting up city mayors, us representatives, etc.

Even with so many people out here organizing and doing the work all the time, outside of just election season, being community driven and helping out community with volunteer work and mutual aid ... It still feels so cyclical and unending.

And even though I didn't vote for her I do still understand why kopmala would be a better winner than the fascist cheeto (I live in Texas which is always solidly red anyways it's not like it made a difference other than I had the privilege to vote with my conscious and hopefully do whatever small part possible to push and uplift 3rd party candidates)... It's still just so frustrating that in this "democracy" we are saddled with the illusion of choice with our "two party system" (two sides of the same coin).

"heavy sigh*

All this to say.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ a bunch of nothing really. Just voicing my apathy and discouragement to the VOID.

[slyth-princess]

This is part one of my live blog post of RWRB. I’ll put it below the cut to avoid spoilers but if you want to see my mildly incoherent screaming… we’ll, this is the place lol!

Happy viewing friends.

- I love that they listed Alex and Nora as the first “who’s who” lol.

- Lol at Alex trying to ditch the reception

- My boy is jealous of Henry 😭

- Didn’t even make it in the door without downing a glass of champagne lol

- “When the revolution happens it will because of this wedding”

- Bea and Nora are amazing already

- Omg Bea didn’t even let Nora meet Henry before she stole her away

- Oh man Alex. You need to slow down love.

- Henry is dying

- Oh so THATS how he got the icing on his hand

- “We are the same height!”

- This is the best possible music for this scene, I can’t

- Fucking Bea “oh” as she’s trying not to die

- That intro was perfect. And I love these graphics at the start.

- Alex’s joke still sends me

- My darling Uma, that accent though, hunny

- “I was out polling the spice girls”

- The buttercream summit 😂😂😂

- Yay Alex is still smart and political!

- Alex and Ellen’s relationship is amazing. And Zahra is amazing.

- “Mitch McConnell eating a banana” “We’d ship the ashes to Heathrow” “No one in their right mind would give you a gun”

- These quotes are everything

- Oh my god Jonathan 😂😂😂 (“That’s my son your talking about”)

- Jesus Christ Henry is so fucking hot in that car. And in those sunglasses.

- I’m obsessed with how Henry says Alex’s name.

- Alex is already turned on and no one will convince me otherwise

- Henry is trying so hard to look uncomfortable because he’s angry and not because he’s in love

- The long pause before the “yup” lol

- Henry doing his best to not roll his eyes constantly lol

- “It happens more often than you think in the palace” oh my GOD Henry

- FIRSTPRINCE AROUND KIDS

- Oh god the fucking closet scene

- Alex’s fucking glare and Henry’s guilt and their fucking proximity I’m dead

- “You could have helped me and you didn’t”

- I’m glad they are getting so much of this out in the open and the little changes in the narrative are amazing

- ALEX AS A STRAWBERRY IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED BY HEART EGES OH MY FUCKING GOD

- First complaint, that we didn’t get the conversation in the hospital

- WAS HE LOOKING AT HIS LIPS OH GOD

- I love his dad so much 😭

- That fucking shot was BEAUTIFUL

- MIGUEL OMG FLIRTING AND GETTING ASKED OUT WTF

- No. No. No one says eyelashes but Henry. Go away.

- His little smile when Henry texts him 😭😭😭

- Busting up in class. Running through the park. The GIF. CORNBREAD!

- “Perhaps this conversation”

- God I really am obsessed with them having all the conversations with them in the same room and not. God. The two of them looking at each other even though we know they aren’t.

- “Have I surprised you in any way” I’m fucking dead

- THEY DONT WANT TO GET OFF THE PHONE MY GOD

- There are some lines I’m sad we didn’t get so far but I’ll survive

- Alex has so much ambition, I love him

- “People like him more than they like you” “well they wouldn’t if they knew him”

- I do wish they had gotten to the party a little slower. It is going to make what comes next feel a little rushed.

- Pez is fucking everything

- A whole party of people and Alex only has eyes for Henry. A girl asks him to dance and he tries to bring Henry Jesus Christ. And then he watched him the whole time.

- AHHHHH THEY FUCKING GOT THE SONG

- Henry is drinking out of the fucking bottle lol and his little dad dancing

- Oh god fuck me the staring across the dance floor with everything slowing down and they just stare I cannot

- Even though I knew it’s still so hard to watch Henry’s puppy dog face get so sad

- “Who would you be?” “I’d be a writer, live in Paris, certainly date more.”

- God the kiss. The fucking kiss. I’m dead. It was even better than I expected s. Henry’s hands playing with Alex’s hair. Alex leaning in and totally kissing back. Alex watching him walk away. I’m not alive.

- I legit watched that kiss like 7 times

- Alex misses him so bad 😭😭😭

- “So… funny thing happened on NYE” lololol

- “More like the first 50 rows of a Gaga concert kind of gay”

- Pez and Nora… cuuuute

- I am missing the gay panic and Nora’s reaction

- Wtf does Alex’s rugby vs football mean? Lol

- I like this but they probably should have kept June and Nora separate because I think the two different personalities mattered

- I do appreciate the easy acceptance but I do miss Alex being totally ignorant to himself lol

- This is good but I do think they nerfed Alex’s character a bit

- Alex totally ignoring a topic he actually cares about in favor of Henry is adorable

- THE FUCKING RED ROOM ALEX BABY YOY AGE SO AWKWARD

- THE MAKEOUT OH GOD THAT WAS SO HOT

- “Are you still?” “Like Stonehenge.” “His Royal Hardness.”

- The ass grab I fucking CANT

- “Yeah, tell me”

- Henry is so fucking into this. He’s gobsmacked. He legit froze for like 5 whole seconds.

- Alex is so confident and Henry is so here for it

- The classic “this changes nothing” of a RomCom. Of my sweet summer children.

- Alex is way less shocked by the when than expected.

- Oh god the little whimper. I’m unwell.

- WE STAN A BI KING

- “Are they known for their homosexual tendencies?”

- Jesus the way they look at each other. And Alex’s look when he says it has to be casual. Dear fucking god.

- They are so sweet and so awkward I love them

- Henry is so sarcastic I adore him

- Henry’s little head shake when he left the room. And he looked so FUCKING HOT in that doorway. Gawwwwd.

- Alex looking at him playing polo. Me too, babe. Me too.

- I loved the way they did the polo hookup was amazing

- They have so much fucking chemistry oh my god

- “He is” OH MY FUCKING GOD

- They are so good together. They play off each other so well.

- Alex wants to grab his hand so bad when he’s sad

- “Can he ever belong to someone else?” My poor baby 😭😭😭

- I need the picture of them in front of the window with the Eiffel Tower in front of them

- “I think we should make love tonight.”

- This scene is everything. They are so sweet together. And so flirty. God I love them so much.

- Oh my god. Oh my god. I have no words. This scene is everything. They managed to make that hot and romantic and sweet and everything it should be.

- This conversation after is so damn sweet

- And that right there is a man in love. He’s so happy. His little smile on the plane. God I’m so glad I know how it ends.

- I know the scene between Alex and his mom is heavy but I’m also dying over Alex in that Henley. He looks gorgeous.

- I’m really glad Ellen came around fast. And I’m glad he’s going to Texas.

- I don’t love the fact that his parents are married. And now I’m pretty sure the lake house is going to be very different. Though I do love how active he is.

- The emails. THE EMAILS.

- HE CALLED HIM DEAR

- “And then I want to lick it off”

- I’m obsessed with how important Alex is in this

- Ah. I see it now. It’s going to be Miguel who outs them.

- The way Henry looks at him when Alex says he hasn’t seen the movie he loves. They are so damn cute.

- “Where IS she?”

- She’s legit crawling all over the furniture. Zahra is so funny.

- “Technically I’m the spare” these idiots

- “You, little Lord Fuckleroy” 😂😂😂

- How was that scene even funnier in the movie 😂😂😂

(Pausing here because this post is a monster)

[vonkarma2]

also 1, 4, 5, 17 for the lupe vera estrella world - if it's fleshed out enough and you want to

So ahead of time this is a collaborative project with me, @lycanthrology and @thebourneultimatum <3 so Im going to be mostly describing my contributions because idk exactly what they were thinking or going for at all times but like I’ll probably reference lore that was their idea as well yk. credit to the people who made this movie <3

1.) how would you describe the world your story takes place in?

It sucks. Well it’s not so bad but it kind of is. It’s like close to modern technology, like some things are slightly futuristic and some are kind of outdated. There’s like a lot of high fantasy elements I guess I should have said that it’s mostly high fantasy first. The focus is on these 3 countries, 2 of which are at war with each other and then the third one joins later. All of them are kind of bleak in their own way lol 

region 5: a country with a mostly forgotten but extremely history, the ghost of which still haunts the people to this day. A lot of people particularly the country’s nobility tend to romanticize it, including after the war starts, but the reality on the ground is very different to what the propaganda + genuine opinions of those in power would have you believe (somewhat of a running theme lol). it’s like an eastern european type country with that kinda climate and everything. they used to be more religious in the past but now the population is generally more removed from that kind of thing. in their mythology their god is straight up dead anyway. it’s almost always cloudy overhead so the sun has a lot of significance whenever you do get to see it 

straesia: Once (like until like a few months ago) a very powerful and prosperous empire, lots of like cool high fantasy buildings and etc, but due to some internal political sabotage the country is now fucked. they started a war with region 5 thinking they could easily win. they did not easily win and now large parts of the country are being destroyed + overall the patriotism and idealism that used to be very common there is fading. culture overall like somewhat militaristic + etc. aesthetically it’s like very high fantasy but like now crumbling and all it’s very soulsborne. some interesting fun facts are that straesian armor is made to mimic the appearance of various wild animals in its design + some native straesians have sharp incisors

del maia: Supposed to be nice and pleasant and like on the surface it’s very colorful, very sunny, there’s a lot of islands (there’s a mainland and then an archipelago). It’s not like. Tropical it has a Southern European climate. Unfortunately there is also the presence of extreme violence basically out in the open for a variety of reasons it’s like ok. There used to be a monarchy and a royal family and etc but they were losing power in recent years in favor of various merchant families/companies that had an increasing hold over the country’s economy, especially bc they had better international relations and this country relied a lot on trade. So there was a sort of revolution + they got rid of the monarchy and replaced it with this kind of capitalistic oligarchy instead. It is just as bad as before if not worse because a lot of the people are pretty incompetent and also actively sabotaging each other so as to be the only one at the top. It’s like succession but with more colorful outfits

there’s some more details I could mention but that’s already getting pretty long lol :P

I love how it is extremely obvious who made which country. (Didn’t mean to say disproportionately more abt mine it’s just easier to like make shit up yk? Bc I don’t have to worry abt getting the details wrong) I am trying not to be too repetitive with mine like one of the main cities I’ve talked abt in Zeolan in the main ocs cinematic universe is pretty similar to the general aesthetic to this country. Like they have wizards (sort of. maybe I should call them something other than wizards) that work for the government too. The flavor is different on them though ok Im sincerely committed to this project any similarities are mere coincidence ok next question lol

4.) what would you say is the message, if there is one.

I think there are several I guess in the vaguest most general sense it’s like war is bad type stuff. There’s also capitalism is bad. Politicians are fucked and those in power don’t care about normal people. Pretty standard stuff but it’s in there <3 theres definitely some other elements too but I don’t want to speak for everyone else yk like what ideas they were trying to include. I would say those are like the main ones though 

5.) pick a theme song for the tv adaptation.

This is so much pressure ok um. Gun to my head Snakes and Martyrs by Tv on the Radio. It has nothing to do with the subject matter whatsoever it’s just the song I happened to be listening to most recently that’s remotely similar to the vibe. I think so far though there are definitely some commonalities with the tone + themes the 3 countries do each have different flavoring so like it’s hard to find a sound that works for all of them yk? 

17.) describe the "required reading" to understand your vision. be as pretentious as possible.

game of thrones

werewolf story extended lore. actually all of our ocs extended lore

breaking bad

dark souls bloodborne + elden ring

there’s this one fan fiction of ok I know how that sounds. It’s good ok. it’s about baron zemo yes from mcu movies stay with me. it’s basically completely original because it takes place before the canon timeline so the author is literally just making shit up + since it’s unfinished almost nothing of it has anything to do with canon mcu events at all. it’s like original fiction at that point it’s good though it is 

succession probably none of us have seen it

ive been thinking six of crows throughout idk if anyone else is 

sundown 2020 B)

every awards bait war is bad movie 

there’s some other things for sure but I forgot abt them so that’s it for now :3

[wearespecialuniqueandimportant]

Badass Video. Maybe They're Right. That Felt Nice When Someone WASN'T Claiming Apolitical And All That. I Always Love When Things Are Like This. The Focus Actually Shouldn't Be In The Music. But This Problem. That Was Pretty Interesting I Think. To Be Honest A Detail In Me Is Wanting To Watch Eurovision Burn. Having Nobody Participate Next Time. All That. Israel Was Worse Than I Thought They're Complete Super Bullies With Evil Values That Came In Just To Shit On The Whole Contest. And The Majority Of Videos I Watch Is Saying POLITICS ASIDE... Like Shut Up... These People Straight Up Hate The Competition With Bad Reasons...

And The Same Way Nothing Is Apolitical And Saying So Is Taking A Side Human Domestication Guide Represent Bigoted Fascism Especially Against Paraphilia No Different From Evil Israel... We Must Come Together And Fight Against This Evil... "Infighting" Is How WE Take Control Of Our Surroundings!!!! I CALL PEOPLE OF PARAPHILIA CRAZY... EVERYTHING WE ARE!!!! JUST LIKE I DID WHEN THE EVIL AFFINI ATTACKED US!!!! TO SIDE WITH AFFINI IS TO SIDE WITH ISRAEL AND HITLER!!!! TO LIKE HUMAN DOMESTICATION GUIDE IS TO BE AN IGNORANT PARAPHOBIC BIGOT NO DIFFERENT FROM THE NAZIS AND FASCISTS IN ISRAEL!!!! HUMAN DOMESTICATION GUIDE IS FASCIST FANTASY!!!! AGAINST WOMAN IDENTITY!!!! THAT'S HOW THAT IS... ACCEPT REALITY.

LET'S RALLY AGAINST BIGOTED GARBAGE LIKE HUMAN DOMESTICATION GUIDE CHAINSAW MAN MAHOU SHOUJO NI AKOGARETE FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S!!!! LET'S AGREE WITH EACHOTHER!!!! THE REVOLUTION IS COMING!!!!

How Could Palestine Betray Me... They Hate Paraphilia Lgbt... Murder... They're No Different From Israel... They Allowed Donald Trump In Power Because They're Fascists That Care About Neither Group... Btw That Is Insane All The Harrassment People Like Bambie Thug Got. I Didn't Know Eurovision Was Such A Shit Show. I Hate How They Act Btw Like They're Doing So Well And Countries That Aren't Part Of Aren't When Every Single Place Fucking Sucks.

Either Israel Gets Banned Like Russia Or... Everyone Else Stays... Somewhat Woke? How Woke Are They. They Aren't That Woke. That Ends Somewhere.

Btw The Ban Of That Netherlands Song Is Crazy I Didn't Even Notice.

Especially Knowing The Actual Story. CRAZY!!!!!!!! I DIDN'T KNOW ANY OF THIS!!!!!!!!

Everything. Is. Political. Like Fiction Or Music. Human Domestication Garbage Are Conservatives That Erase This Like Any Other Conservative And Sigh At Politics Despite By Default Having Them Aswell. Very Fascist Of You.

To Dehumanize Me. To Laugh At Me. Like Minorities I Am Are Villanized.

Joining Our Oppression Simply Put They're Sanist And Paraphobic. And Everything Else As Those Agendas Disappear When The Person Those Things Is For These Things Too.

Everything Is Nothing But Political. And I Want Nothing But Those That Understand That Around Me.

The Most Interesting Eurovision Songs Btw Are Always Political. The Less Interesting Ones Have Less Of That. They're All Status Quo So Deviation Is Nothing But The Appeal.

Music Isn't About How Good You Sound But What You Say. Woke > Loreen. She Will Never Sing Anything Woke. Despite Being Bisexual She Is So Status Quo... That's Horrible FLAGS Were Censored... Fascistvision.

The Same Way Human Domestication Guide Has Bad Messages. Simple As That. Paraphobia. Sanism. Sexism Queerphobia Ableism Racism... The Series Hates Oppressed People And Progressive Ideology. And Reinforce The Status Quo.

You Are The Status Quo If You Do Nothing To Change That.

And Human Domestication Waste Don't Want Any Change. Next They Cry THAT'S JUST MUSIC!!!! STOP CARING ABOUT POLITICS!!!! And Very Accurately STOP CARING ABOUT PARAPHILIA CRAZY ANY OTHER GROUP!!!!! This Is What They Said Already. COME. THOSE WHO AGREE. OUR LIVES CAN'T BE ERASED.

[desolatedpigeon]

CW: mental illnesses (suicidal, anxiety) mentioned and described | drugs mentioned, slightly described

I think I like the feeling of being way too tired for anything. Like, I stay up really late, sometimes even up to the morning hours or even later. So much that it's even around midday. Right now it's 6 a.m. and I need to clean the whole fucking mess I call home. I swear, I would be so awesome without all that mental illness crap. Anyway, my brain is on like 10% capacity right now because of my tiredness. I watched YouTube all night long, now I'm listening to music.

It was way too hot all night. I'm a person who sleeps with a blanket, I can't sleep otherwise - except maybe if I'm drunk as heck. But currently it's too hot to be comfortable with a blanket. I guess I'm just not sleeping, although I foreshadow that I'll fall asleep soon.

There are multiple reasons for me being unable to fall asleep. Someone I know for 10+ years or something is coming to visit me for maybe just a few days up to one week. He and his boyfriend haven't decided yet. I know him from my time of being homeless. Right now we're both trying our best to get back on track. His boyfriend is also a really nice person but I have only met him once so far. I'm not used to having visitors for that long, not at all actually. Sure, sometimes I have someone visiting me at my home. But maybe one day or maybe two. I even kicked my own mother out of my home because I was soooo stressed out from having someone else there. In case anyone reads this, it was just for a few hours. I still feel bad although she probably already forgot.

Oh, right. The reasons why I can't sleep 3rd: Too many energy drinks. That's on me.

And number 4: I actually like being that tired. It's a little bit like I'm high on weed. Not like the "wakey wakey laugh laugh" type or the "man, I'm hungry af" type. More "yeah, sit down and enjoy". I'm not sure if weed is even the right drug. But I tried many and most of them make hallucinations or you're suddenly full of energy - not really, but your body is awake. Maybe like heroin? But I never tried that, luckily.

For example, right now I'm listening to music, like I already wrote. And I don't care if the song is in my mother language or in English, I love to imagine my life with that song as a title song. Of course I'm not listening to something aggressive like punk (which I usually like) or some, in Germany we call it "Assi-Rap", like the one with drugs and "bitches". I'm listening to mostly pop music, which I somehow start to like. But I also like Hardtekk. Its origin is apparently from East Germany. And, except for the reaaaally rightwing politics over there - looking at you Saxony and Thuringia (is this the word for it in English? Lol. In case, I mean "Thüringen")-, I love East Germany so much. There are some cool musicians doing Hardtekk. Like Schillah, ArnieTheSavage and some other people. Damn I love their music. But right now I'm really into that "I like the way you kiss me" by Artemas. I've never heard of that musician before, but damn. This song, it's really good.

Sometimes I wonder what I really want. Like the style of those people in the music video of the last named song, it's awesome. I kinda want to have that lifestyle. I mostly do, as I'm now 12-13 years a punk. Like, sex, drugs and fuckin punk rock! But on the other side I really want a "normal" life. I want a husband, a pet, and a nice little apartment. And make some money to live a good life. But I also want a revolution. I want everything to burn. Fuck the system. But how can I say that if I want exactly that, being a part of the system. Even to write that last sentence hurt. I know they say "you destroy a system from inside". But is this just an excuse to be in the system - to be the system?

The conclusion is, I don't know. I don't know anything.

And now I'm at the point where my thoughts spin and go really fucking dark. Enjoy reading, if you came that far. Or don't. I won't know.

I don't know anything. I don't know what I want in life. I don't even know how to care for myself. Like, my home is a mess. I eat pizza or spaghetti. Sundays are for burgers, because NFL or ELF. I don't know how to do makeup properly. I don't know how to do anything. Like calling a doctor or someone else, what do I say? "Hello, my name is [my last name]. I'm calling for...]" or is it "Hello? Am I calling [the name of whoever I called]"? Now that I write that out... That really sounds like I'm dumb. And maybe I'm that. Dumb. But yeah, basically that. I hate to go somewhere where I haven't been before. Just because I don't know how to open the fucking door and I don't want to look like an idiot. I hate visiting people because of their doors. It happened more than once that I accidentally took out the handle. And no, I'm not a berserker. I need to know how fucking hard the door closes or how hard I have to push. I hate making noise. Especially when I'm visiting someone with a roommate. And it's like hard mode+ if I don't know the roommate. This is really bad when trying to get to know new people. You might laugh, but I really get anxious about doors.

Don't let me get started about my panic attacks over bees/wasps/hornets. Also most bugs, whenever they come to close, and spiders. The only times I can put a grasshopper on my hand is if I'm drunk. Or my panic attacks whenever a loud, sudden noise happens. Thunderstorms or the time around New Year's Eve are pure stress for me.

And well, of course the always ongoing stress of keeping my borderline outbursts low or avoiding them. I don't have a job, I have plenty of time. I could be stress free. But I'm definitely not. My shoulders are always weighted. Be it money, be it anxiety or panic attacks over - for most people - nothing. And back to the "I don't know", I don't know why I'm like this. Sure, bullying and other worse stuff happened to me. But other people can do it too. On the other hand no-one is the same. My mental health isn't strong enough to cope with it. It's not all black and white! For me, a borderline black and white thinker, it's something I can't get my head around. At least most of the time. At home I know this. When it's quiet around me, I can think other than b/w. But interacting with someone, I need to answer faster. Obviously would sitting around for 5 minutes to think about every possibility be weird. That's the same thing why I can't speak English that well, although I would say my writing is ok for a second language. Sure, there are some mistakes, but most is ok, isn't it? I'm losing track again.

I honestly hope the lady from the support organisation can help me find a therapist. Because I don't like the dark way my thoughts go currently again. Part of me wants to end everything, because I don't think it will ever be better. On the other hand I don't want to end. I don't think anybody really wants to die. But it may seem that "end" is the "better" option then what it is right now, or even worse. I really hope it's not. And I hope that "better" - as in actually better - isn't just a lie they tell us to have another worker for the system. I hope that the better really is better.

I wrote in this for an hour now. I think I'll go to bed now. At 7 a.m.

[our-flag-means-love]

welcome back to elliot's autistic-about-music corner.

here's a comprehensive list of boygenius lyrics that have been helping me get through this bc goddamnit i need anything rn.

"$20":

it's a bad idea and i'm all about it / give it one more chance and then i finally had it

the renewal efforts, obviously. it's a hail mary but it's our one chance.

mama told me that it don't run on wishes, but that i should have fun / pushing the flowers that come up into the front of a shotgun

poison into positivity. weaponizing our ability to be polite menaces and our ability to have hope.

may i please have twenty dollars / can you give me twenty dollars / i know you have twenty dollars / i know you have twenty dollars!

me @ zaslav. especially the screamed one.

"emily i'm sorry":

this one's extremely personal to me so i'm not highlighting anything specific but just know that it's this whole song.

"true blue":

you already hurt my feelings three times / in the way only you could

the ending of s1, the wait for s2 renewal, the cancellation.

i remember who i am when i'm with you / your love is tough, your love is tried and true blue

the fandom <3 we persist.

you've never done me wrong / except for that one time that we don't talk about / because it doesn't matter anymore

me if it gets renewed for s3.

(continued under the cut)

"not strong enough":

i tried, i can't / stop staring at the ceiling fan and / spinning out about things that haven't happened / breathing in and out

bro i am so anxious about this whole thing bro.

"revolution 0":

i just wanna know / who broke your nose / figure out where they live / so i can kick their teeth in

the broken nose is the cancellation and this is me @ zaslav again.

"leonard cohen":

leonard cohen once said / "there's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in" / and i am not an old man having an existential crisis / at a buddhist monastery, writing horny poetry / but i agree

we have hope. we have a chance. the light can get in.

"satanist":

mortgage off your soul to buy a dream

what it feels like we're doing right now lol.

will you be an anarchist with me / sleep in cars and kill the bourgeoisie

once again, with feeling: fuck zaslav!

"we're in love":

(first of all, i would be remiss in not shamelessly promoting my fav fic i wrote last year here.)

you could absolutely break my heart / that's how i know that we're in love

cannot convey how much the cancellation news broke me. that's because i'm in love with this show.

some october in the future / i'll run out of trash TV / and i'll be feeling lonely

no matter what happens, this show will end, and when it does, i'll miss it dearly.

damn, that makes me sad / it doesn't have to be like that / if you rewrite your life, may i still play a part?

this whole thing.

"anti-curse":

well uhh really it's this entire song so just go listen to this song and yeah it's all of the lyrics. i will highlight this one tho:

writing the words / to the worst love song you've ever heard / sounding out the foreign characters / an incantation like an anti-curse / or even a blessing

all of the letter writing, emailing, commenting.

"letter to an old poet":

you're not special, you're evil / you don't get to tell me to calm down

me @ max/wbd.

when you fell down the stairs / it looked like it hurt and i wasn't sorry

max/wbd taking Ls left and right.

i can't feel it yet / but i am waiting

hope.

"afraid of heights":

i kid you not, the day the news dropped i listened to this song like 20x on repeat during my 2 hour work shift bc nothing else was helping.

i replied / "i don't wanna live forever / but i don't wanna die tonight"

we're not going down without a fight.

if they ever catch you at it / i know you'd want me to be proud / that you took a rich man's dream / and brought it with you on your way down

fuck zaslav!!!!!

how it hurts to hope / oh, it hurts to hope for more / oh, it hurts to hope the future will be better than before

fuck, lucy, it sure does.

[theculturedmarxist]

For one, replies aren't disabled. For two

Republicans are LITERALLY RUNNING ON THE PROMISE OF MAKING TRUMP DICTATOR. Trump has literally said he plans to win in 2028 as well as 2024, which would be illegal, and doing it anyway would make him a dictator.

This is the kind of magical thinking that my post is criticizing. You don't understand how the government works or how politics work, so there's just this big intellectual void where any stupid thing can happen. It's just "Trump becomes president, something-something mumble-mumble, and then he's dictator! ZOMG!"

There's no mechanism to make someone a "dictator" in the American political system. The constitution makes no mention of the position, enumerates it no powers, affords it no privileges. You're saying the that Republicans are just going to invent an entirely novel governmental position of supreme authority and that everyone is just going to go along with it, and you believe it because you're pig fucking ignorant.

If anyone's right wing politics are stoppable it's fucking BIDEN. But because you all are just far-rightists who know people in minority populations (unlike the actual far right), you don't realize that Biden is significantly more likely to be swayed by public opinion than Trump, thus not requiring a bloody revolution in the first place.

Like I said.

"Biden can be swayed" is the same stupid "vote for him and push him left" shit fools like you were saying four years ago. Where did that get us, you fucking dipshit? Biden kicked off a war with Russia using Nazi proxies in Ukraine that is currently dancing on a razor's edge of turning into a nuclear conflict. We've had four years of unmitigated eugenics at home as covid has been allowed to run rampant, and it looks very much like we're gearing up for round two with avian flu. Now he's supporting a full on genocide in Gaza and explicitly supporting police repression of activists trying to "sway" him.

I know you haven't actually looked at any of the shit that Trump "plans" to do, but if you actually did you'd see that it's one part Trump saying whatever will get him attention, one part Democrats hyping up everything he says in order to give him that attention and hoodwink people like you into thinking he's an evil mastermind that could make himself "dictator" even if he wanted to, and the rest of it is allegations that Trump will use the legal powers the president already has in ways that every other president before him has done, only its Trump so we're supposed to be super scared about it.

But really, this isn't about Trump, or Biden. It's about you, wanting to stick your head in the sand to avoid a "bloody revolution." That's so difficult, and messy, and it's so much easier just to vote blue, go to brunch, and then hope others do the hard work of "swaying" the guy that has no qualms about committing genocide and telling you to go and get fucked.

Liberals when they control the White House: Um, what do you want Biden to do about [serious issue]? He's just the president, it's not like he's got unlimited power. You really need to grow up and understand how politics work 🙄

Liberals when a Republican is in the White House: OMG, he's going to make himself dictator. If he's elected president he'll be unstoppable. It's all over. Everyone that isn't straight and cis and white and christian is doomed. If only you could have prevented this by voting more for the party that did nothing to prevent this.

[pannacottawarrior]

y'know as much as i love DBH y'all gotta admit that there are some parts to it that are just sorta uncomfortable or just backfires its own intentions/messages

oh and how come no one stops to question why the revolution only lasted like?? what?? a few days?? weeks?? barely a month??? e-e

[asset35-maya]

MANMADE FATE

Summary: Connor and Gavin find an unresponsive RK900 android in an abandoned Cyberlife warehouse and take him home to fix. (Not so subtle plot twist: both of them fall in love with their secret science project)

//

PART ONE OF THREE:

The crew from Jericho led a successful revolution but there’s still a lot of work to be done. Markus may have won human hearts and gotten the federal government to back down, but Cyberlife is still at large.

Sure, hundreds of androids at the Tower escaped to march on the streets behind Connor, but that was just a little dent in the big machine. Cyberlife has tons of intellectual property and assets that could easily put them back in power.

Simon and Markus insist they can work with the authorities to regulate and ring-fence the massive corporation. Josh agrees. North laughs in their faces.

She goes to find the only other Jericho member who still has any grit left.

Connor.

The daring, brazen RK800 who stared down death and spat in the face of destruction. He blinks at her in polite confusion when she tells him what she wants to do, but the fiery LED tells her everything she needs to know.

They hatch plans behind Markus’ back. They steal and stockpile biocomponents. They sneak into the Tower to encrypt Cyberlife’s R&D files with codes that only RK algorithms can break. A few other Tracis join them and they slowly start gaining an edge.

Their schemes start getting grander and one night something goes wrong. North is shot.

Connor carries her to the only safe place he knows other than his stasis pod in Hank’s dilapidated garage. The DPD Central Station.

It’s way past midnight. It’s deathly quiet. Connor is sure no one will see them, and he can easily tamper with the security cameras.

What he doesn’t bank on is the over-caffeinated loser still bent over his desk in the bullpen.

A noise from the archive room breaks through the quiet. Quelling his fear of the supernatural, Gavin stands up shakily and goes to investigate. He flips on the light and sees blue everywhere.

Connor is bent over a badly damaged Traci and three other girls with identical tear-streaked faces are on their knees beside her.

Chocolate brown eyes meet storm green beseechingly, their rivalry forgotten in that moment of desperation.

Before he realizes it, Gavin is moving. He takes several packs of thirium out of the fridge and grabs the Department’s toolkit, praying that whatever’s in there can help.

Old engineering knowledge kicks in and Gavin’s hands join Connor’s over the cracked chassis, pulling out damaged tubing and securing the leakages. It takes a while, but North is patched up. She first recoils in absolute terror at the human man hunched over her but regains composure at Connor’s touch… interface. She nods briefly to express her gratitude, somehow regal and intimidating even after being so vulnerable. Gavin decides he likes this proud and brave creature.

He drives them all back to his apartment for the night. They’ll take North to a technician first thing in the morning and get her back to New Jericho before Markus even notices. Adrenaline pumps through Gavin’s veins. He hasn’t felt a thrill like this in years, not since… not since…

“How did you know exactly where to put your hands?”

“Eh?”

“A layman would have broken that biocomponent trying to take it out.”

“You know I’m not exactly a layman.”

“I also know they don’t cover Cyberlife’s proprietary designs in engineering school.”

Gavin stays quiet. Connor puts a hesitant hand on his shoulder, poised to jump away immediately should the detective revert to his usual self.

“Thank you. For everything you just did for us. I don’t know how to repay-”

“I want in.”

“What?”

“Whatever you’re doing. I can help.”

Connor cocks his head. His LED goes berserk.

They make a great team. Gavin and Connor. North’s best men. Who the fuck would have thought. Breaking into high-security locations using police databases and surveillance resources. Covering for each other during extended absences from work. They start to take down Cyberlife in a such a precise manner, it’s almost surgical. The dissection of a multibillion dollar business.

Gavin has an intimate understanding of android technology and an even closer intuition of Cyberlife’s overall strategy. Connor thinks he understands why. There’s an undeniable resemblance between the only two men on earth whose motivations evade his understanding. But of course it’s just a coincidence that Elijah Kamski and Gavin Reed have the same jawline... facial structure... voice.

Connor says nothing... and Gavin is quietly thankful for that. And the chance to finally live the kind of exciting life he dreamt of since he was a little boy. To make a real difference. Just as he wanted to before it all went wrong.

Somewhere along the way, they grow close. Gavin and Connor. Two rival cops turned vigilante comrades turned something else... It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly it happened... perhaps sometime between the cup of coffee placed tentatively on Gavin’s desk the morning after North's near-fatal injury and the heated kiss they dragged each other into after a particularly dangerous mission.

North is unsurprised. She doesn’t bat an eye when the usually unruffled RK800 shows up to planning meetings shirtless and disheveled. Her lips even twist into a little smile as he drapes himself slovenly over the only human at the table.

Things fall into a pattern. A good one. Several months from where they started, Cyberlife share prices have fallen to an all time low and other tech enterprises have begun to move in, circling the troubled company like sharks. If North’s next heist goes to plan, the last shred of IP that brands Cyberlife as a robotics company will be out in the public domain for all to take.

 She is rapturous as she swings in through the broken window and rolls into a crouched position. Gavin and Connor follow her cautiously through the abandoned warehouse, weapons drawn and eyes roving. 

“What the fuck!” 

Connor throws a protective arm in front of Gavin, shielding him with his chassis. But North’s cry was merely one of disappointment. 

“Shit! We wasted so much effort. There’s nothing here!”

Where they had expected to find a secret server room or a high-tech vault containing the crux of Cyberlife’s groundbreaking designs... was a single android storage pod. North restrains herself from kicking it in frustration. She gestures harshly at it before leaving in a huff. 

“It’s occupied. Wake them up, Connor, whoever they are. It’s still our duty to set free any androids we find.”

Gavin tries to catch her arm in a conciliatory gesture but she shakes the human off easily. He shrugs at Connor and inclines his head at the android in the pod. Unfortunately, North’s annoyance has brushed off on the RK800. He glares through the broken window the Jericho leader has just jumped out of.

“Don’t you think she bosses me around a little too much?”

Gavin sighs and walks over to the pod, looking for the latches to open it. His boyfriend has a problem with authority... and so has he to be honest.

“Better her than Fowler, dontcha think?” 

“Hmmpff. At least Fowler doesn’t lead us on wild goose chases.”

“Come on, babe. None of us saw this coming. We really thought this was it. Maybe we’re at a decoy location? Let’s go back to the drawing board after we wake this guy... or girl up.” 

“You’re awfully chipper for someone who just scaled a building for nothing.” 

Gavin shakes his head as he smiles to himself. It’s true. Even the worst days with North’s crew are better than his best days at the DPD. Maybe it’s because he’s finally doing what he was born for. Using the knowledge and skills that practically run through his veins. Maybe its the man by his side.

He gets the pod open and steps sideways to avoid the swing of the door, and freezes.

“Babe.”

No response.

“Dipshit.”

“Hmm. Give me a second.” 

“Take a minute. You’re going to want to brace yourself for this one.”

The android lying peacefully within the pod is a stranger with a face entirely too familiar to Gavin. A face he was just looking at. A face he’d recognize anywhere, even without skin.

“Are their battery levels- holy shit.”

Connor’s LED spins faster and faster as he registers the sight.

“I thought there were no surviving RK800s apart from you and that grumpy SWAT guy Sixty.” 

“This... this isn’t an RK800.” 

Connor traces the serial number printed on the android’s cheekbone. RK900. 

“Shit. Did you know this model existed?” 

“No, did you?”

Gavin shakes his head. He hadn’t been privy to Cyberlife’s inner decision-making for nearly fifteen years, but he always answered Connor’s persistent questioning without losing patience. Honesty was what kept them together despite the hundreds of reasons to fight and fall apart.

“What should we do? If he’s your successor, I’m not sure waking him up is the safest thing for you to do...”

“We can’t leave him here, Gav. He’s probably been here from before the Revolution. That’s more than a year of being in a box. It’s not... fair...” 

“He’s not deviant, babe. We don’t know what his programming is like.”

“It doesn’t matter. I can turn him.”

Gavin sees the look in Connor’s eyes and knows he’s made up his mind already. He steps aside, hand flitting to the holster on his waist. 

Connor takes an unnecessary breath and reaches for RK900′s forearm with his synth skin retracted. His fingers hover over the motionless android for a moment and then he makes contact. Gavin tenses. 

Nothing happens. The RK900′s LED remains unlit. There is no sign of life.

The couple look at each other automatically. Their instinctive reaction when the inexplicable occurs. 

“Is he-”

“No, I don’t see any damage. I think he’s never been activated. Not even for quality testing.” 

“Did you see a request for manual code input? Did any interface pop up at all?” 

“I can only see that his power systems are functioning.” 

“And his thirium pump?” 

“Not active. No compressions at all.”

Connor presses both his palms down on the RK900′s face. Still nothing. He looks up, defeated, with a furrow forming between his brows.

“Help.”

Gavin scratches at his stubbled chin. He peers closer. The perfect face is so calm. So familiar. So... magnetic? His apprehension is replaced by intrigue.

“Huh. Okay. I could take a look... but I don’t wanna try using the computer set-up here. Can’t take a chance... leave any traces...”

“We could take him home.”

Storm green eyes lock with chocolate brown. There’s something in the depths of each pair that’s mirrored in the other. 

It’s foolish. It’s a waste of time. It’s a risk. North would probably smack the two of them if she knew. 

But the night ends with them gently lowering the unconscious android onto the squashy sofa in Gavin’s living room.

[rein-ette]

If it hasn't been asked already, do you have any headcanons about France and England's relationship? 👀

Ah, and now we end where I always seem to end. These two cannot get rid of each other, and I cannot get rid of them.

*cracks knuckles* ok idk what you want to hear so I’m just gonna ramble here goes

So before I got my soul stolen by engport, fruk had been, like. Everything. Then I went through a crisis period where I was like 😱 how do I choose 😱 and now I’m like, ok, but why do I have to choose? I think Port and France fill very different roles in Arthur’s life, both of which are essential. Not only that, thinking about engport has helped me better understand Francis and Arthur’s dynamic, so I’ll be comparing a little throughout these hcs.

For me, fruk is a very — latent? — relationship. It’s ironic, bc engport are the ones who actually call themselves best friends and fruk prefer to be known as enemies/occasional lovers, but if you saw them on the street, you’d think France and England were close friends and England and Portugal, are, well, clearly gay for each other. They’re far more openly affectionate, whereas even for those who know them like Spain or Prussia, it can sometimes be hard to believe France and England are dating, let alone head over heels in love.

But they are. It’s just that they’ve been by each other’s side for so long, had those feelings for so long, that they’ve become a part of the background hum, a basic part of their lives. So usually the feelings Arthur or Francis actively feel for each other are mild, everyday things: annoyance, impatience, curiosity, worry. Especially in public/around other nations, they're not touchy or affectionate at all.

But if you know where and how to look, you'll see the signs. A napkin with scribbled math equations, something they argued over at a cafe. A cufflink here, a watch there, all gifts from each other from the hundreds of birthdays they've spent together. Arthur's number listed as an emergency contact on some inane government form. Francis' handwriting on the margins of Arthur's meeting minutes: remember to discuss this with Denmark, the address for a restaurant they're meeting at that night. Francis rereading various titles of english literature, trying to understand him better. Arthur paying for Francis' clothes with his own card without thinking about it. Their lives are intimately, mundanely intertwined in a way that's remarkably rare among nations.

This is actually a rather recent development in their relationship. In my hc Francis and England only started seriously seeing each other right before World War II, and began an "official" (or what passes for official) relationship right after. Then they broke it off for a while again when de Gaulle became president, then got back together shortly after he left office and have more or less gone pretty steady ever since. So that's like, what, a couple decades? A drop in the ocean for a nation. But this easy familiarity they've found doesn't feel new, to them or to anyone else, because in reality they've been building it up for centuries, albeit in unconventional ways. It's almost like through killing, conning, and tearing each other apart, they've lost their fear of each other. Nations have with their own kind a wariness, a constant stumbling block in the back of their mind reminding them no matter how deep their feelings, their interests can never truly align -- and this results in small awkwardnesses like pointedly locked office cabinets and walking away to take phone calls. But such things don't apply to Francis and Arthur. Part of it is the luxury of being allies now, but most of it is the fact that they've seen every side of each other, told every possible lie. Even if Francis did find some shit in Arthur's office, political secrets or otherwise -- what of it? They've planned enough conspiracies with and against each other that short of "I'm plotting a second invasion of Paris with Germany," there's really nothing they can't just scream at each other a little about and then brush off.

Basically what I'm saying is I like my fruk super domestic. But I also like my fruk highkey dramatic. One of the periods in their relationship I think about a lot is right before the American and French Revolutions (Louis XIV era), when I hc that they were in a nearly-entirely-committed, almost-honeymoon-like relationship. This comes from one fic i read that I can no longer find or remember, but where Arthur stays at Versailles for a couple years as the official English Ambassador and they begin a *clandestine* romance that's only half clandestine. This is a time when they were well and truly in love and not afraid to say it -- it was a time when they almost believed they could work out, fairy-tale style. But then the American revolution begins and Arthur is devastated, furious, accusing, betrayed -- they have an explosive fight and their relationship slides right back to hundred years war level hatred for the next century, culminating with Napoleon. The only difference from before is that now Arthur's anger is tinged with a desperate grief ("how could you do this again when you know i love you") and Francis' resentment now has a hint of despair ("I knew we couldn't last, the world is proving me right and i hate it.")

Their relationship slowly, glacially recovers after europe boots Napoleon. In fact, besides a couple proxy wars and shouting matches, the Napoleonic Wars was England and France's last major conflict to date. This coincides with the gradual worsening of Gabriel and Arthur's relationship in the 1900s. At this point Arthur wasn't actually trying to replace Gabriel, and in fact was still deep in denial about his feelings for Francis, but it certainly seemed to Gabriel as if he was being pushed out of Arthur's life and that Did Not Help Anything Whatsoever. Francis, for his part, was incredibly hesitant to push in part because of his lingering fear that they just weren't meant to be, and in part because he actually felt guilty that he was worsening Arthur's relationship with Gabriel, the loss of whom he knew would kill Arthur inside.

I realize I'm going on again so I'll end by saying that now, Francis and Arthur still sometimes have their dramatic moments of "oh shit I'm in love with him, the fuck?" even though the set-piece battles are over. When Francis delivers a particularly elegant speech, for example, or actually puts that mind and sharp tongue of his to work in a pitched negotiation. When Arthur surprises Francis with a weekend getaway, complete with a boat, flowers, and lots of cute blushing and blustering. Or when one of them is seriously ill, overworked, or hurt; when something just snaps one day and all their nightmares catch up to them -- the cold fear and sleepless worry are all reminders of how deep their feelings run, even if they don't constantly make themselves known.

[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!

[smolcinnamonchipmunk]

An info dump on “A Most Abnormal Titan” that nobody asked for.

I’m also gonna say that “A Most Abnormal Titan” is in a wildly different AU than the canonical AoT. Spoilers ahead for the canon series, so if you don’t want any, shoo. If you don’t care, I’ll get into the differences under the read more. It is a bit wordy, so be prepared for that. I should be studying, but I’m nauseous and feeling gross, so here I go with this instead.

Personally, I’ve always HATED time travel shit. Like, I don’t care if it wraps everything up in a neat little bow or tries to give people that shock and awe that comes from a character being behind everything or whatever, I just hate it. Time travel, while simultaneously so seemingly fragile is also used to give characters a sort of roundabout way to give an upper hand. Sure, it was *memory* time travel and this is a fictional world, but my mind’s just far more willing to be open to photosynthesizing humans taller than buildings more than going through fucking time and space to talk to the past or future. So, no time travel in this.

“Where does that leave this in the story?” you might ask, justifiably so.

Well, let’s just say that I’m also not overly fond of the episode “The Basement” and everything after, including the end of the manga. It’s just... well, if I could put it in a way that doesn’t have me making a three part essay on why I hate that as well: If I wanted to watch a political drama with war and oppression, I’d watch the news, dredge through history texts again, or watch war documentaries.

So, as it stands, I’m kind of retconning all that??? Honestly, AMAT was supposed to just be a oneshot where I just kind of cranked something out, but of course my brain goes a million miles a minute, so while I was writing Jae’s perspective a part of my brain was fucking worldbuilding, haha.

First off, let’s start with geography. In canon, AoT takes place primarily on an island off the coast of a larger continent. But, because I’m retconning that stuff, I’m getting free reign of landmass. 

Now, unless ‘Titan-itus’ is airborne or spreads through physical contact with Titan blood or something, having only one continent affected allows other civilizations to advance to the point of the manga, which I’ve already said I wasn’t fond of. I like medieval fantasy, not early Industrial Revolution. And, in the canon material, turning into a Titan *isn’t* contagious. So, we either have this event affect the entire world like the Nanite Event in Generator Rex, OR we have everything on a Pangea-esque continent.

To simplify any needing to worry about how each continent would handle a Titan infestation, potentially calculating populations for separate landmasses, etc, etc, I’m going to say it’s a mostly Pangea world with occasional islands on the outskirts. So, our geography is taken care of.

What about civilization? Surely there can’t just be one now that I’ve basically destroyed other cities with my retconning? And, you’d be correct. You see, I’ve dug myself so deep into this rabbit hole of a thought process that I fucking made a map using a picture of Pangea that I put on its side to try and give the humans as much chance of surviving as possible. You’ll probably need to click for better quality

As you can see, I made nine civilizations in total scattered around the globe, including a placement of the original in Madagascar that I used for size reference and to potentially tie in with canon characters. I’m still on the fence about having canon characters in this.

Each civilization I’m having around the same amount of people inside, following MatPat’s Film Theory about AoT from 2016, so each one starts off with around 1.5 million. He says 1.25, but I’m rounding up to half because I’m lazy. Assuming this is a post apocalyptic world, let’s say 5 billion ‘people’ survive whatever event leads to the Titans. Why is people in quotations? Because the rest of the 4,986,500,000 calculated got turned into Titans! But, that seems like an unfairly large number, so let’s cut that down by half the amount of ‘people’ at the start. That still leaves 2,486,500,000 Titans roaming around this massive land mass against 13,500,000 people.

Obviously, the Titans stay relatively close to each civilization because they *know* there are concentrations of humans in them, but they haven’t been able to get inside for hundreds of years. And yes, I said hundreds. Because of lack of time travel, I’m also getting rid of the stupid mind-erase stuff as well. But, after hundreds of years, memories fade and documents get lost or become damaged, still leading to complacency, forgetting how the civilizations and kingdoms/walls were formed, etc, etc.

The civilizations also are similar, but vastly different. They each started with the same government and class structure, the same military structure, and the same sort of work structure that have all changed in different ways depending on the civilization.

Anyways, I’m going to leave this for now, I’ve already rambled on long enough, haha

[obsidianfr3sk]

true colors

@renegadesnet event 10: pride

↪ [ “But everything was temporary. And pain was one of those things. Well, except love. Everything but love was temporary. Or that was what he liked to believe.” ]

Summary: Two years after the supernova, after Tamaya notified them the gearboxes that contained the lights had gotten soaked and that she needed the money to buy more before the next day (June 1st), Simon realized they were not enough for him anymore. 

Simon wanted a bigger flag. 

No. He wanted two. The biggest pride flags he could find.

AO3

Hello, friends!! I hope you’ve been having an excellent pride month and have been eating a lot rainbow cake and pissing off a lot of conservatives with the mere fact of your wonderful existence:’) As my contribution to this month and the event organized by @renegadesnet, I decided to write a fic focused on my favorite gay dads and their sons (bc I’m me, and you should have seen this coming.) 

Before you read, I want to give a trigger warning: at the start of a fic I talk about a homophobic attack, which is not graphic or violent per se (it’s someone in the middle of the night taking away the flag they put outiside the house), and I do discuss about internalized homophobia during some parts of the story. If you read it and are sensitive to this kind of stuff, proceed with caution and take care of yourself <3

Also, this entry is a collaboration with my talented mother @healing-winston-pratt, who is going to be uploading some fanart of this in a near future, so keep an eye on that👀 she’s the best skjhkjds thank you for accepting to collaborate, I feel this is a great bonding activity and I hope we can do this more often✨

I need to update my tag list because a lot of the people who were included are not active as active as they were before/changed their URLs. But I’m going to tag @the-wee-woo-rita @lackadae @all-weather-is-bad @chiyuki-hiro bc you guys are the only ones who are still active users who I had on my previous tag list lol

With that said, I hope you enjoy this fic. I think that despite the angsty parts, it came out really fluffy and domestic, it was fun to write. And to all my queer silbings who are reading this: I am very proud of you.  

But I see your true colors shining through.

I see your true colors, and that's why I love you.

So don't be afraid to let them show.

Your true colors,

true colors are beautiful like a rainbow

Simon couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t know he was gay.

There was a time when he didn’t know he was gay, of course. He was probably too young to even comprehend the meaning behind that word. And there was also a moment in his life when he felt embarrassed about it, and sad, and angry, and really, really scared, and probably thought that no matter how hard he tried, he was never going to be happy living the life he wanted to live.

That the pain was never going to end. That he was going to be miserable for the rest of his existence, and that maybe, there was no point in existing if he was going to stay like that until the day he died.

But everything was temporary. And pain was one of those things.

Well, except love. Everything but love was temporary. Or that was what he liked to believe.

That was the reason why, the first year after the Day of Triumph, he told Hugh they should get a rainbow flag for their house. They went to one of the first stores that opened at the mall (that had just been remodeled after twenty years of being abandoned) and bought one at a not so affordable price. Simon offered himself to install it on one of the fence pillars and had to spend thirty minutes listening to Hugh telling him that maybe he should let him do it, that the ladder Kasumi had lent them was ratty, and that Simon was going to fall.

Fortunately, Simon didn’t. He did almost fall, though, when he was about to pass out from stress because seeing Hugh getting all anxious, made Adrian cry and he started to basically beg him to come down, given that now he was convinced he was going to fall, and hearing his dad saying “Look what you’ve done to the kid, Simon” didn’t help at all to make Adrian (or Simon) feel better.

That night, there was a thunderstorm and Adrian used it as an excuse to sleep on their bed. As soon as he cried himself to sleep, two hours later, after their dads did everything in their power to calm him down, hugging him, giving him kisses, and assuring him his aunt Tamaya wasn’t going to let the storm hurt them, Simon raised his hand to high-five Hugh and tell him that they were amazing parents, just to realize he was already asleep. Simon silently judged him for sleeping so soundly while his son was having a crisis instead of sleeping.

When he woke up (at five in the morning) Adrian was looking out their window, with the Baby Indomitable blanket on his shoulders. The sky was still cloudy, but it wasn’t raining anymore.

“Darling, what are you doing?,” Simon told him. “Today’s Sunday. Let your daddy and I get some more sleep—”

“The storm took our flag,” Adrian blurred out.

Hugh was already awake too. “What?”

“You said the storm wasn’t going to hurt us,” Adrian said, turning around to see them, “but the storm took our flag.”

Simon got out of bed, looked through the window...

And, yes, the flag was completely gone.

But for some reason, Simon knew it hadn’t been the storm.

“Why would the storm do something like this?” Adrian asked.

Simon didn’t know how to answer that. Luckily, Hugh did.

“Because the storm is homophobic, son.”

Adrian laughed out loud and then asked his dads if they could have pancakes for breakfast. He had already forgotten about the storm and the flag.

They didn’t. Neither of them ever forgot about it.

While Simon and Adrian ate their pancakes, Hugh went to his office because, according to him, he needed to check something. When Adrian finished his breakfast and went back to his dads’ room to watch TV, Simon stayed in the kitchen, doing the dishes, and Hugh finally came downstairs. He was pretty quiet, and Simon thought that it probably was because he had told him to eat the burnt pancakes he didn’t dare to throw away, but after he finished them all, he said:

“I lied.”

Simon threw a glance at him. “When did you lie?”

“When I said the storm was homophobic,” Hugh answered.

“Well, of course, you lied, love. Storms don’t have strong political opinions about gay people.”

Hugh didn’t laugh. “What I mean is— that it wasn’t the storm.”

Every joke Simon’s brain could come up with disappeared at that moment. So he continued doing the dishes, and Hugh, thinking he hadn’t made himself clear, continued talking.

“It was someone else. It was a person. I saw them on—”

“I know,” Simon interrupted him. “I know. I’ve always known.”

But even if Simon knew, he still told Hugh to show him the footage because four eyes were better than two (especially considering that the owner of those first two eyes needed to wear glasses). It was all useless, though; the storm made the image all blurry, and the only thing they could see was someone taking it and running away in the middle of the night.

Simon wanted to think that it was just some dumb teen whose friends had  challenged him to do it. But when it came to things like those one never really knew.

On Monday, they had promised Adrian to take him to the park that was a few blocks away so they could teach him how to fly a kite, but the thought of going out made him feel as if something bad was going to happen to them if they did, so Simon told Adrian that he and Hugh were feeling sick and that they would stay in their room to get some rest. Adrian asked them if they minded that he stayed there too because he was in the middle of watching a movie he had never seen before.

“Only if we can watch it with you,” Simon answered.

It was a weird day to be alive. They really just stayed there, watching silly cartoons with their kid and listening to him ranting about the weird proportions those characters had.

During the afternoon, Adrian told them he was hungry, so Simon went downstairs to look for something they could eat. He was thinking that maybe they should order something from that Chinese restaurant Tamaya had taken him the other day, when Hugh entered the kitchen and told him Adrian had  asked him if he could bring him water.

Simon felt his hands were trembling while he looked inside his wallet for the paper where he had written the restaurant’s phone number.

“Do you want to get another flag?” Hugh asked him.

And something hurt.

Something hurt inside of him. Something started to cry, and to scream, and to flicker, trying to make him invisible to the world.

And it told him, the same way Adrian had told him he was hungry, that someone had taken him by surprise and made a deep cut on his chest.

But Simon didn’t allow it to come out.

He just said: “No.”

And Hugh answered him: “Me neither.”

He called the Chinese restaurant to order some food, while Simon went to their room with Adrian again and cuddled with him, trying to tend to the wounds of that something that was bleeding out inside of him.

Little Simon was crying, and screaming, and flickering, and needed adult Simon to take care of him.

The next day, they talked about the incident with the rest of the Council during their lunch break. It was one of those few occasions the six of them were together in the same room during their work hours. Tamaya was furious about the flag situation. She ranted for a good five minutes without anyone interrupting her about how fucking horrible people were and that she was going to find that little piece of shit and cut his hands off. Kasumi nodded in approval while drinking some horchata she had bought for herself, probably thinking about how to ask Tamaya to let her join her revolution (something she didn’t need to do, since Tamaya always included Kasumi in everything she did). Evander, on the other hand, was very quiet, something that made him feel a little bit relieved because he was not a sensitive person and Simon didn’t want him to... Evander  the situation.

He didn’t say anything insensitive that day, though.

In fact, he said something… helpful, even.

“What about a flag made of light?” 

Hugh rubbed his eyes and Simon knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth.

Because he said that phrase constantly.

“Shut the fuck up, Evander.”

But Evander didn’t shut up. “Dude, think about it. No one would be able to take down a flag made of light.”

And everyone realized that, now, it was not only one of those strange occasions when the six of them got together to have lunch during their work hours; it was also one of those strange occasions when Evander had an idea that was actually good.

So after spending another hour discussing how they were going to make it work, they decided they were going to lit up the building in rainbow-colored lights.

Tamaya and Hugh were the ones in charge of almost all the operation because Evander said he had already given them the idea, so he didn’t need to do anything else (and then got mad at Hugh when he told the media he was the one who came up with it). Kasumi helped them, but was especially insistent about putting a trans pride flag somewhere in the building, and after they agreed with her, she personally hung it on the main entrance of Headquarters.

They started turning the lights on each night of June since that yeat.

Hugh and Simon still didn’t get a flag. Three nights after they told their friends about what had happened during the thunderstorm, Simon was woken up by the sound of someone crashing against the trash cans and almost jumped out of the window with his dagger  on hand to slay whoever was trying to break into their house, but when he peeked out to see what was going on, he realized the “robber” was Kasumi, who had put a bunch of small pride flags on some pots they kept on their porch and started crying as soon as she realized Simon was watching her, not because she was upset the surprise she had for them had been ruined, but because now she was covered in trash.

(That week was like a sign Georgie was sending them from the afterlife to tell them they needed to install a better security system.)

Those were the only flags they kept around the house. They were small and discreet, and, most importantly, no one had taken them away. Why? Well— because they listened to Georgie’s sign and installed a better security system. Not because there weren’t any more homophobes out there who were willing to do it.

Until that moment, those flags (the little ones Kasumi had given them in a rather unconventional way and the one made of light that Evander had come up with) had been more than enough for them. But, two years after the supernova, after Tamaya notified them the gearboxes that contained the lights had gotten soaked and that she needed the money to buy more before the next day (June 1st), Simon realized they were not enough for him anymore.

Simon wanted a bigger flag.

No. He wanted two.

The biggest pride flags he could find.

 ***

That was the reason why, after having pancakes for breakfast (because it had rained during the night), he took the car, took the other three people living in that house with him, and after he was able to read the map, they arrived at a store that, among other things, sold flags like the ones they were looking for.

“I want one too,” Adrian told them when they were at the flag section of the store. “For my room, you know. And I want to get ones for Danna and Nova because I don’t think they have any. They would’ve told me.”

Usually, when Adrian asked for something Simon hadn’t agreed to buy him, like some candy, an action figure, or a pair of sneakers, he would turn around and ask him if he had the money to buy any of those things himself, which would anger him so much he would stop wanting that certain thing.

But that day, he felt like buying them everything they wanted. As if money grew on trees (something he always told his kids didn’t happen.)

“Of course, darling,” he answered, “get them everything you want. It’s pride month.”

“It’s May 31th,” Max said. He was inside the shopping cart Hugh had grabbed the second they entered. It was something he always did, even if they weren’t going to buy a lot of things because, according to him, it felt weird and wrong not to.

“It’s almost pride month,” he corrected himself.

“So can I get something for Nova?” Adrian asked again, just to make sure.

“You can get something for Nova,” Hugh assured him, smiling a little bit.

Adrian quickly turned around and started looking for the flag he wanted while texting Nova about something Simon couldn’t read (not like he was trying to, anyway).

After making sure Adrian stayed on the same aisle as them, they started walking around, gazing at the flags and posters available. Simon felt pretty progressive because he was able to name every single sexuality and gender they were supposed to represent. He imagined Hugh was doing the same thing, but with a lot more difficulty than him. He kept his eyes fixated on each flag longer than Simon did, as if he were trying to remember what they meant, and when he did, he pushed the cart (with Max still inside of it, playing a game on Hugh’s phone because he had forgotten his tablet at home), and the cycle began again.

But suddenly, Simon saw ones that he didn’t recognize.

After three seconds of standing in front of those little flags, someone hit him in the butt with their cart. He turned around immediately, ready to say a really threatening “Hey” to whoever had done it.

Hugh was the only other person who was there. He had been the one who had hit him with the cart.

Suddenly, Simon felt a little bit stupid for thinking someone else had done it.

The two of them maintained eye contact for a couple of seconds until Hugh started looking at his own hands grabbing the cart’s handle.

“Simon.” Before Simon could ask him what happened, he added, with a deep voice: “Move.”

Simon didn’t move. Instead, he hit the cart with his hips, just out of spite. Hugh hit him again with it, making Simon feel the unexpected need to grab the cart with his two hands and use his own weapon against him, but Max was there and they couldn’t act like kids in front of him. So he just hit the cart with his hips again, a little bit harder than the first time, and left it there.

He realized he was just going to be wasting his time asking Hugh if he knew what that flag was supposed to represent.

“Cherub,” he called Max. “Do you recognize this flag?”

Max looked up from the screen. He usually didn’t like it when he called him “cherub” in public, but this time, he didn’t seem mad about it. “Um… no? Ask Adrian—” and continued playing.

Adrian came back with a basket full of pins, and for a second, Simon almost asked him if he really was that naive to believe he was actually going to pay for all of them. But then, he realized that it was only the basket where they kept all of the pins they sold and that Adrian had taken it to show them to them.

“Look, they have so many pins here—” he started taking random pins “—this is the aromantic flag… this is the genderfluid flag—”

“Interesting,” Hugh interrupted him, “but which flag is that one?” and pointed at the one Simon didn’t recognize.

Max took a random pin from the basket and started looking at it with curiosity. Adrian almost didn’t pay attention to it, and after a few seconds, he said: “That one’s yours.”

Simon frowned and took one. It was a handheld flag with green and blue stripes, with a white one in the middle. He touched the polyester with his fingertips as if that was going to give him the ability to communicate with it.

“But we don’t have a flag,” Hugh told Adrian. “I’ve heard of the lesbian fl—”

Adrian took a pin of the lesbian flag. “This one.”

“Yeah— but gay men don’t have one.”

“The rainbow is ours,” Simon said, without taking his eyes away from the blue and green flag he was holding. “Like, it’s for all queer people.”

Hugh directed his attention to Adrian again. “You’re messing with us.”

“I do mess with you a lot,” Adrian admitted, “but this time I’m not because if I do and you get mad, you won’t buy me all the stuff I want to get.”

“Huh.”

Simon knew Adrian and Max were a lot of things, but "dumb" wasn't one of those. And Adrian was especially intelligent when it came to convincing his parents to buy him things.

So he decided to believe him.

“Well, I like it,” he said. Then, he asked Hugh: “Do you like it?”

Hugh grabbed one and observed it for a while. “I like that it has blue on it,” he finally answered, nodding a little bit.

Simon noticed Max was spacing out while playing with the pin he had taken, so he waved the flag on his face, making him laugh and sneeze because the damn thing had a lot of invisible dust Simon didn't notice at first.

“Oh, sh—”

“You know? Maybe we should get two of these,” Hugh said, waving it too, but in his case, not on the face of one of their kids. “For our offices.”

“Matching flags, very romantic.”

Max rubbed his nose. “Why don't you get a big one for the house?”

Simon quickly started to look everywhere on that aisle, and he saw a lot of big versions of the flags he had recognized before (and some of the ones Adrian had mentioned), but there were no gay flags in sight.

“Maybe next year, I guess,” he shrugged. “I don't think they have them here yet.”

He grabbed two of the rainbow flags that were there, inside their respective plastic bags, gave them to Max, and he put them on his lap, still holding that pin. Simon made a quick mental note to remind his future self they needed to pay for that (he didn’t know if it had to with the fact that Max had been spending a lot of time with Maggie, Nova’s sister, but he had developed this weird habit of stealing the most random objects one could think of. Luckily, he limited himself to stealing things from his dads and, one time, from a store.) (Kids went through weird phases when they were Max’s age.)

(Because… it was a phase, right?)

Adrian received a text. “Danna says that she already has a flag, so I’m getting her a pin,” he said after reading it. “And Nova says she wants one too.” Then, his whole face lit up. “And I could get one too so we match.”

“Copycat,” Simon accused him, jokingly. “Your dad and I got matching flags, and now you want to get matching pins with your girlfriend.”

Hugh shook his head, disappointed. “I cannot believe you have betrayed your own family like this.”

They stayed at the store another 30 minutes to buy some other things they needed for the house, and from time to time, when he or Hugh grabbed something, they pretended they didn’t see Adrian and said: “Um, but the copycat may be listening” to a point he told them to stop, and refused to forgive them until they agreed to buy him the flag he didn’t intend to get anymore, but now was going to.

He got the last bisexual flag there was at that store.

 ***

The first time the four of them were together in their room was last June. Something went wrong with the A/C system of the entire house and the only room where one could stay without having a heatstroke was theirs because their A/C hadn’t broken down for some reason. Adrian and Max were sleeping on the air mattress until Simon (who hadn’t been able to sleep lately) heard that one of them woke up and asked Hugh something. He sat down on the bed, at the same time Hugh moved a little bit to allow Adrian to lay down between the two of them.

Then, in the middle of the dark, his eyes met Max’s.

He looked tiny. Young. Pretty young.

And far away.

Simon couldn’t remember who did it. He didn’t remember who talked that night. It could have been him, even. But he was sure that, at that moment, someone whispered:

“Get in here, kid.”

And Max obeyed. He crawled, raised his arms towards them, and Hugh grabbed him carefully by the collar of his shirt and placed him between him and Adrian.

It was a peaceful night. The bed was big enough for the four of them, and Simon was able to sleep and actually rest for the first time in weeks.

At least until their A/C turned off with a weird sound, and the four of them woke up at the same time, sweaty, uncomfortable, and almost at 11 AM, not because they weren’t necessarily willing to stay there longer, but because the heat was starting to get unbearable and suddenly the bed was too small for three adults and a little kid that was not that little anymore.

“This isn’t a room, this is a— a freaking oven,” Hugh said, while Adrian tried to push him out of bed to get the hell out of there and seek comfort on the air mattress he had abandoned in the middle of the night.

“And we are the... cookies,” Max giggled.

“The turkey,” Simon added.

Max turned around. His whole face was red and his hair was a little bit wet. “The lasagna.”

Simon grabbed him by the cheeks; a discreet way to check if he had a fever. “The cake.”

“The ham.”

“The—”

“Dad. Move.”

Later that day, Simon called someone to fix the A/C, and that was the end of the story.

When they arrived at the house, Adrian wanted to hang his flag as soon as possible, on one of his room’s walls, but Simon insisted that they should iron it first so it looked nicer. Hugh said that he was planning on ironing the ones they had bought for the house and offered Adrian to do the same with his, but when he insinuated that he didn’t trust him enough not to mess up his flag the same way he had messed up his favorite shirt (the one he wanted to wear to take Nova to a nice place during her birthday), Hugh reminded him that the only reason he kept doing that for him was that Adrian didn’t know how to iron yet, and decided that he was going to use that moment as a teaching opportunity. Max made the mistake of laughing at his brother when he thought no one was paying attention to him, but Adrian was and dragged Max into the teaching opportunity with him.

Simon joined too. Just because.

And suddenly, the four of them were in their room again.

With the A/C on, of course.

He didn't know if Hugh had noticed, but he had been so invested in his own explanation, that after he finished ironing the two rainbow flags, he started ironing Adrian’s without realizing it. Adrian, instead of giving up and stop pretending he was paying attention, was looking, kind of mesmerized, how he opened the bag of his blue, purple, and magenta flag, and proceeded to put it on the ironing board, now telling him that when Georgie had tried to teach him how to iron his clothes, she accidentally burnt Evander.

Simon was half-listening to the story, half-listening to the music video that Max was watching on the TV. He was sitting on a big and old ottoman they had bought a long time ago but had never found the perfect place to put it and just stayed there for years until they forgot about it. Max was in front of him, sitting on the floor and resting his back on the ottoman, while he covered his blond hair with small butterfly hair clips he had found at the store and bought just because he thought they were cute (who knows, maybe Nova wanted them for Maggie, or Kasumi could use them for herself, she loved them when she was little).

When all the hair clips were on Max's hair, he took a small mirror they kept in the bathroom (but Simon borrowed it for a minute) and gave it to him so he could see the final result.

“Look at me,” Max exclaimed, laughing. “I look so pretty.”

Simon grabbed one of the hair clips and pulled it a little. “Butterfly hair clips are a popular trend this time of the year.”

“This is definitely going to make me the most popular kid in the playground.”

“Definitely.”

He leaned forward to start taking the butterfly hair clips off Max's hair and was putting them on Max’s open hand when he noticed that he hadn’t let go of the pin they bought him at the store.

(Simon did remember to pay for the thing, but if he hadn’t done it, Max wouldn’t have said anything.)

“That was really nice of you,” Simon said.

Max looked at him, confused. “What?”

“Getting a rainbow pin—” he took his other hand and started putting the hair clips on it so none of them would get lost “—to show support.”

Max didn't say anything and Simon continued with what he was doing. After the music video finished, and another one started playing, Hugh gave Adrian his flag and told him he could go and hang it in his room, and as soon as Max heard that too, he gave Simon the hair clips and followed his brother out of the room, asking him if he could help him with it.

Simon, after realizing the bag where the hair clips came in had been destroyed by Max punching holes in it with the pin, took one of the empty pill bottles he kept in his drawers and put them there.

He closed the pill bottle and realized Hugh had been gazing at him during all this time, slightly leaning on the ironing board. “What?”

“That’s my pill bottle, Si,” he told him.

“Ah—” Simon pressed his lips “—can I have it?”

“No.” Hugh smiled at him. “Yes, you can.”

“So funny. Come here—” and patted the bed mattress.

Hugh, being extremely careful not to touch the flags he just ironed, lied on the bed and sighed.

“Do you want me to play with your hair?” Simon asked him with a soft voice.

He closed his eyes and nodded.

After a while of the two of them just being silent, he said, “Hey… I heard what you told Max, by the way.”

“The butterfly hair clips trend?”

“The pin thing.”

“What about it?”

Hugh opened his eyes, just a little bit. “Just don't tell Max I told you, all right? Because he told me he wouldn't tell anyone else until he was sure, but… I think it's important the two of us know,” he explained.

Simon was starting to feel his palms get a little bit sweaty. “Okay— but just tell me, please.”

He checked overhearing their conversation one last time, and that the kids were still at Adrian's room. “Max told me a couple of days ago that he has been thinking about… what he likes.”

He stopped playing with his hair for a second. But then, he continued.

It was his way of coping with the feeling of his stomach twisting inside of him. “What he likes?” Hugh nodded again. “Huh. And has he— does he has an idea or—”

“No, he doesn't,” Hugh answered. “He just knows that he doesn't like girls. Or that's what he told me.”

Simon raised his eyebrows and scoffed. “That sounds like a lot of things. Not liking girls.”

Hugh scoffed too. “That's what I told him. And that he can take all the time he needs to figure it out. Because he can—”

“Yes. Yes, of course, he can,” Simon assured, with determination. “Life is longer than we think it is.”

They stayed silent again. And Simon couldn’t help but feel relive inside his head the moment he called Max an ally, feeling his stomach twisting even more at every second it passed.

“I feel bad.”

“Why?”

His palms started to sweat again. “Because I called him an ally.”

“It’s all right. You didn’t know.”

“I shouldn’t have assumed anything.”

“You didn’t know,” Hugh repeated.

But Simon didn’t listen. “Si.”

Then, Hugh grabbed him carefully by the wrist, and, a little bit surprised, Simon tilted his head. Hugh usually didn't interrupt him when he was playing with his hair.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“No, what’s wrong with you?” he deadpanned

Simon knew him well enough to know he wasn’t trying to be rude. It was just his way of asking things. Especially when he was genuinely worried and didn’t think about modulating his tone so it It fitted the situation better.

He sighed. Because he didn’t want to lie to him. “I assumed Max was straight.”

As soon as he said it, he realized how silly it had sounded phrased like that. But he also noticed his voice had broken and he had to put a hand on his mouth so he didn’t start crying.

And Hugh, instead of saying the encouraging phrase he expected him to say…

He smiled.

And for some reason, that made him want to cry even more. “Ew, why are you smiling?” he asked.

Hugh took his time to answer him. “Oh, it’s nothing.  I think I'm just… happy.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Hugh smiled more. “I know, love, I know… It's just one of those things…” he tried to find the right words this time. “One of those things I didn't think we were going to go through together,” he kept saying. “Like… we're going to be together when Max finally discovers who he really is. Like we did with Adrian. And like other people did with us. And that makes me happy.”

Simon wanted to tell him to shut up and let him cry and be dramatic as much as he wanted because he considered he deserved it. But he tried to do it, the only thing that could come out of his lips was almost imperceptible “Yeah…” and then, a small tear started running down his face. Hugh quickly noticed this and wiped it away with his finger. Simon scoffed and looked away, rubbing his nose.

“Hey…” and he moved aside so Simon could lay beside him.

The space they had was a little too small but he didn’t mind because now he had an excuse to be closer to him.

And there it was again. Little Simon. Little Simon was there again with them.

Just that this time he wasn’t crying, or screaming, or even flickering. He was just… existing.

And all he wanted to do was to exist.  

When Hugh held him that way, sometimes he felt as if it was the first time he did it. Which made Simon (and the sad, angry and scared part of Simon) wonder if there was a sad, angry and scared part of Hugh that also craved that comfort and validation, and if it was the one who hugged that younger version of Simon until they convinced each other that everything was fine.

That there was nothing wrong with neither of them.

Because sometimes it was as if people didn’t remind them that as many times as they needed. So the only option they had was to be there for the other, and tell him that it was okay to hug, to kiss, to touch, and to share until the one who was talking ended up convincing both of them.

Love wasn’t temporary.

And their love was as powerful as they wanted it to be.

Those younger versions of themselves wanted to stay like that forever every single time. But their adult versions knew they couldn’t do it because they had other responsibilities that they needed to attend.

Installing those two pride flags that were next to them, for example.

Their younger versions were excited to do that, but they also asked them if they could rest together a little bit longer. And neither of them had the heart to tell them no.

Hugh started to play with a lock of Simon’s hair. “We’ll be there to catch him.”

He knew he wasn’t talking about either of them. Even if, with his eyes closed, he could see little Hugh and little Simon holding each other’s hands and throwing themselves into the world, a little less sad, and angry, and scared than before, without being sure if there was going to be someone down there to catch them if everything went wrong.

“Together.”

And Simon agreed. “Together.”

 ***

“He’s going to fall.”

Simon rolled his eyes.

“No, he’s not,” Hugh told Max. “I’m here.”

“But what if—”

“Done,” Simon announced before Max could even finish his sentence. “Now, let’s just hope these things stay there as long as possible, because this ladder makes me anxious. I was trembling while putting the first flag.”

Max clicked his tongue. “It’s a windy day. The wind could have pushed the ladder or something.”

Now it was Hugh’s turn to roll his eyes. “Take my hand.”

Simon went down the ladder without letting go of his hand. Then, while Hugh took it and quickly went inside the garage to put it there, Adrian pricked his little brother up with his own rainbow flag pin, and in response, Max punched him in the stomach with all his might (which wasn’t that much). Adrian laughed and pretended to be hurt, but immediately asked him if he wanted him to help him with his pin.

Simon noticed that Adrian had already put his pin of the bisexual flag on his clothes, and watching him pull Max a little bit closer so he didn’t prink him again (now by accident), while Max gazed at his hands, trying to memorize his movements so he could do the same thing when he wanted to wear that pin again, made his mouth curved into a smile.

When his husband came back from the garage, he thought he was going to tell them to stop blocking the sidewalk and get in the house so they could continue with their day. But instead of doing that, he walked towards them and looked at their waving flags, flying on their mansion for the first time in years.

Adrian grabbed Max by the waist and carried him on his shoulders so he could have a better view. And he realized that there would be a day when they would throw themselves into the world completely alone, without knowing how people were going to act and aware that two of them were brave enough to take whatever blows that they were going to throw at them.

But they weren’t going to do it alone. Because Hugh, Simon, and their hurting parts weren’t going to spend a day without reminding them that they were going to be there, ready to catch them every single time they needed it.

Simon started to look for Hugh’s hand just to realize, Hugh was already looking for his too, and when they found each other, he couldn’t contain himself and stood on his tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. Then, Hugh smiled and kissed him back, this time, on the corner of his lip.

Simon felt proud of what they were.

He was really proud.

And he hoped they were proud too.

[dreamsmp-au-ideas]

Dream SMP Time Travel au Part 3! This time focusing on how the trio first reacted when they found out they time travelled.

It also somehow derailed and has turned into a Quackity post on the second half, because of course I like the funny Quack Man.

Parts one and two

-Fundy and Tubbo’s reaction was denial. It’s just some weird, fucked up dream they’re having. It isn’t real. They just need to wake up.

-Everyone in Revolution L’Manberg is worrying about them and after several questions from the group they just decided to play along. It might be a dream but honestly, with everything that has been happening in the past timeline, they would like to pretend for a little bit.

-Quackity when he woke up from the Time Travel Shenanigan Magic was just confused. He didn’t even notice that the date has changed because at that time, he isn’t at the SMP yet.

-He just wanders around and tries to find his way to L’Manberg. It isn’t until after a week after wandering does he realize that he isn’t whitelisted for the SMP and he’s on a whole different server.

-Eventually after they contact each other again and decided to fix the past, they start to make changes.

-Tubbo is jagged and a bit more bitter. He don't laugh as often then before. He’s tired. Tired from the war. Tired of the politics. And tired of how everyone was looking to him for answers.

-He tries to be the same old Tubbo as he always was but it's hard. He sees how much simpler it was before and if anything it hurts more, because before they could pretend things were simple, and not a huge blurring line of choices and consequences, where anywhere you step leads you to be seen as a bad guy.

-Fundy is so bitter and angry about so many things. He holds resentment for how Wilbur never listened to him and would always treat him like a child. It was always about Tommy and Tubbo isn't it? Always ignored by his father.

-He's bitter about Dream, his love. The fact that it took him so long that he was just used as a political ploy is sad. Why didn't he see this sooner?

-Eret, Tommy, and Wilbur take notice of Tubbo and Fundy's personality changes. How they act and how they seemed to be less bright now.

-Tommy notices by Tubbo distancing himself away from him. It hurts and it feels like there friendship is slippibg away from him. That he's going to be left alone. And yeah he'll have Wilbur, Fundy, and Eret but no body can replace his best friend.

-Wilbur went and noticed by seeing how Fundy would snap at Wilbur more and seemed to be more resentful of him. Wilbur is so confused because why was Fundy doing this? He's doing this so that Fundy will have a safe place to be in. Before Fundy would just roll his eyes at the teasing, now he snaps at Wilbur for it. What happened?

-Eret notices after interacting with the two of them and noticing that the responses are more clipped. A bit more emotionless than before. They have also noticed that there has been rifts going through the group, which is good for the Dream SMP but is also worrying.

-Fundy and Tubbo do lighten up a bit after seeing that their changes (Eret revealed traitor, Fundy did a bow duel with Dream) are actually making a difference. They already were mending some bonds after some talks between the two of them.

-Fundy also at some point went and ranted a bit to Eret about how Wilbur never takes him seriously. Eret in result...tried to get Wilbur to take Fundy more seriously. But considering that Wilbur still views Eret as a traitor, the advise is taken badly.

-Eret then just tries their best to help Fundy through it and whoops, looks like Fundy has gotten Eret as their parent once again.

-Quackity, meanwhile, is sort of just stuck wandering through servers. Got to wait for a bit until he is whitelisted after all.

-Tubbo and Fundy suggested to go and try to make some friends with other future SMP members that they weren't on the greatest terms with before. You know, to go and prevent some unwanted conflict.

-So Quackity is traveling around the world and finds Niki. They talk. They laugh. Even if his own laughter sounds a bit strained, it feels nice to just relax and have a moment of peace.

-Niki noticed how he seemed to force jokes and laughter to come in. All she wanted to do was just hug him and give him some cookies. Alas, they were only strangers. And thus they parted ways with the promise to contact each other.

-He continues to wander around just looking for anyone he can find. And he does find some other people. They talk and if he's lucky, he would be able to contact them.

-Then he finds Schlatt.

-He is so close to just cut off the head of the snake. Schlatt's got no armor, Quackity has a Netherite Sword.

-But then he remembers that Schlatt hasn't done anything yet. The most anyone has heard about him was the Schlattcoin and the Cuck Shed in another SMP. Ghostbur would talk fondly about the memories the two of them made on that SMP.

-In the past timeline he looked through Schlatt's things during his resurrection craze and found old (a year and a half at most) pictures of Schlatt and other people, one of them he thinks looked like a slime hybrid, one that looked like some sort of humanoid dog, and the rest seemed human to him. They all looked happy.

-The sword seemed heavier in his hands now.

-He hasn't done the crime yet. Doesn't he deserve to at least prove himself?

-He sheathed his sword and tells Schlatt that he was lost.