Amazing First Thing To See When I Opened Tumblr

Amazing first thing to see when I opened Tumblr

So I was just doing some calculations, right?

But, uhm..

Okay bbg I'm sorry I love you but.... Uhm...

Uhm... Okay no my head actually physically hurts🩵

Annually returning to Tumblr just to giggle at cute and goofy art of a bunch of dead 18th century dudes. This app is peak.

What if and hear me out Charles Lee was just autistic and didn't like change which is why he was so mad after Von Steuben renovated Valley Forge but Von Steuben had OCD and didn't want this place to be filthy and disorganised and so they were both neurodivergent but in the opposing ways and that's my ted talk on why they REALLY didn't work out together okay thank you

No BC I'm actually so sick and tired of the Von Steuben hate. His portrayal in fanfiction is just atrocious. First of all he deserves so much love and attention oml, second, what made you think he's a monochromatic dirty old man who cares about nothing but sex? What evidence do we even have that he was at all like that!? Have you read his letters, have you read memoirs, have you read accounts of, idk, HIS FRIENDS!? People who actually met him!? Because he does not seem like that at all and the way we portray him is not only stereotypical but extremely disrespectful. Have you ever read a single sentence about him mistreating or over-sexualising his aides? NO!? Yes, he was probably dating a good amount of them. Yes, he was MUCH older than most, but he was a human. He was a human being, not just some throwaway gay general who we get to absolutely exploit in fanfiction, and if you can't take the time, to see that, you shouldn't even write about him. I'll also add that he wasn't some random German who came to America to wave his flag or promote homosexuality or whatever, not only was he VERY crucial in our independence but he had actual trauma, yk? He was DEFINITELY mentally struggling, I'll tell you that, I'd say (almost) as bad as Laurens, even. And I also think some of you guys are forgetting that homosexuality was completely illegal almost everywhere in the 18th century. Neither George Washington nor Ben Franklin cared what this guy and his lovers did behind closed doors, BUT GOOD GOD NO ONE WANTS TO SEE THAT IN THE MIDDLE OF A MEETING, EVEN FOR TODAY'S STANDARDS!? For the love of God, you can keep covering Du Ponceau in hickeys, I guess??? BUT WHY DOES IT HAVE TO HAPPEN IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, DAMMIT!?

I think part of this comes from the rumor that he was "openly" gay, because no... That's... Not how that works. The only people I'd really say are OPENLY gay in the 1700s are MAYBE Frederick the Great and Henry III of Prussia but that's because they literally rule their country and can do whatever they want. Von Steuben wasn't even OPENLY gay in Europe, he was just a queer man who kinda got called out and OUTED, BTW, and fled to America because nowhere else wanted him.

Have any of y'all read the novel "Forge"? It's a sequel to the novel "Chains", and it's GREAT. It's a 4-7th grade novel about two enslaved (teenagers?) in the American Revolution, and it was so good oml. I read it in 5th grade. One thing I noticed is they portrayed Von Steuben GREATLY.

They portrayed him as a kind, good drillmaster WITHOUT mentioning his homosexuality.

The two Von Steuben personalities I see in the media are a hypersexual man whore who wants everyone to know his sexuality, or a monochromatic angry, sad old man who hates everyone

Is this really how America wants to remember their first drillmaster?

:(