#el rapids

[killvampz]

the fall of el rapids.

my piece for the dsmp goodbye project charity zine! go check it out here and donate if you can, all profits go to the sarcoma foundation of america!

[shopmoonymoss]

KEYCHAIN UPDATE LETS GOOOOOO

LOOK CHAT LOOK LOOK THE TEST BATCH GOT HERE !!

if you wanna pre-order one you can here !!

obvi some of the designs didnt translate to the keychains (for example lmanburg, the flag should be flipped so its on the same side as the clasp) and i have fixed the designs !! i might also the badlands ones colours turned out to dark so i changed the outline to a lighter grey :D (the new design is next to the old one for reference)

[majorbisexualpanic]

HIS WHOLE WHAT💀💀💀

[sing-me-under]

El Rapids

The black stone piles weren’t pretty, and the terraforming was so obvious it almost hurt to look at. After throwing everything they had at Party Island, they only had enough leftover funds for one large bed that they all piled into at the end of the day.

Sure, they didn’t have the dignity of the Greater Kingdom they’d been cast out of nor did they inherit the steadfast might of L’Manberg… They really didn’t have much of anything, but it was the happiest they’d been in a long time. It was liberation and recklessness without having to step around the darkness of politics. It was where they could just be.

It was definitely a place, and it was their place.

[minecraftrelatedrandomness]

c!Quackity tried this with c!Schlatt exactly once, only to get shoved off for being “clingy”. Not exactly great when something like this is only done when a duck (or, well, duck-adjacent being) feels safe and comfortable with someone.

c!Quackity later retried it with c!Karlnap in El Rapids. In those times, he got lots of hugs and pats because c!Karlnap thought he was being a sweetheart (and he was!).

c!Quackity never tried it with c!Wilbur, especially not in the Pogtopia era when c!Wilbur didn’t have the best reputation and he himself was Going Through It. Had he ever tried it in the Las Nevadas era, when c!Wilbur was starting to make a bit of recovery, he might have had a bit more success, but by that time, c!Quackity had already resigned himself to not getting any more affection.

While nothing happened before or during what we call Las Nevadas Episode 4, in the weeks that followed in what we call the early stages of Las Nevadas Episode 5, c!Foolish caught c!Quackity curled up and asleep at c!Charlie’s gravesite on more than one occasion.

c!Quacky

[chjroptera]

best dsmp stream ever no contest

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jess Craig at Vox:

After more than a year of neglect from global leaders and massive funding gaps for humanitarian assistance, the war in Sudan has reached a critical tipping point. Warring parties are waging a deadly battle for control of El Fasher — the capital of the state of North Darfur and, until recently, one of the last safe havens for civilians. If the city falls, experts warn there will be dire human rights consequences, ranging from ethnic cleansing to outright genocide for millions of people.

What’s happening in El Fasher is just the latest in the year-long conflict between two rivaling military groups struggling for power after working together to oust Sudan’s former president and his successor. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the general of the country’s military, known as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), became the de facto ruler of Sudan in 2021 — but tensions with his temporary ally, the paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), soon boiled over as the leaders attempted to integrate the RSF into the SAF. This tension grew into a civil war last year, one that has created the world’s largest displacement crisis: On Monday, the United Nations told the AP that more than 10 million people — about a quarter of the population — have already been internally displaced since the war began. The SAF and RSF have clashed sporadically in El Fasher, which is the government military’s last foothold in all of western Sudan, but the town has largely been spared the worst of the war until recent weeks. That changed on the morning of May 10, when heavy fighting between the two groups broke out. Near daily bombings, indiscriminate shelling, and airstrikes have rocked the city since. More than 1,000 civilians have been injured and 206 people have died, according to Claire Nicolet, the emergency program manager at Médecins Sans Frontières. Hospitals and camps for internally displaced people have been damaged by gunfire and explosions. Very few aid convoys carrying food and health supplies have reached the estimated 2 million civilians in the city. 

As RSF has expanded its control of other towns in Darfur over the course of the war, they have resorted to ethnic targeting and brutal violence against civilians, including raping, torturing, and killing non-Arab civilians and using racial slurs against them, as Human Rights Watch has documented. Human rights experts are concerned that if El Fasher falls to the RSF, it might trigger a new wave of ethnic cleansing, reminiscent of the genocide that occurred in Darfur in the early 2000s when some 200,000 non-Arab civilians were killed by Janjaweed militias and government forces. The RSF evolved from the Janjaweed militia, an Arab-majority fighting force created by the former president to fight Darfuris in the mid-1980s. 

Although the current war between RSF and SAF is more of a power struggle than a sectarian one, ethnic tensions have long simmered in Darfur since the genocide, Akshaya Kumar, the director of crisis advocacy at Human Rights Watch, explained. If RSF gains the upper hand, they will control the entire Darfur region where most non-Arab communities reside.  The situation is all too familiar. As it was in 2003, the crisis teeters on the brink of famine and genocide. And as was the case then, the world’s worst humanitarian crisis remains unconscionably neglected by the foreign governments and international bodies that have the power to intervene to push for a peaceful resolution or to urge the warring parties to respect international humanitarian law. In the coming months, the humanitarian and human rights situation in Darfur and across Sudan may be finally too harrowing to ignore, but by that point, it may be too late to do anything about it.

Vox takes a look at the vastly under-covered story of the Darfur Genocide and the battle for control of El Fasher in Sudan.

[swordfright]

any tips for writing c!punz? I'm losing my mind out here

I'm gonna start by referring you to some posts that might be helpful:

elm on c!Punz as a very emotional character

my thoughts on c!Punz's self concept

aidan on c!Punz as an enabler

c!Punz is great at putting on a chill, laid-back demeanor, but underneath that he can be very intense, and if you rewatch some of his key plot-heavy streams chronologically, you can very clearly see him becoming more and more intense as the story progresses. Two things I think a lot of ppl tend to either forget or gloss over are 1) he was there almost from the beginning and presumably remembers the golden past that c!Dream so desperately wants to recover; and 2) he was possessed by the Egg, which would've had a pretty big impact on him vis-a-vis how he views his own autonomy and role/involvement in plot events.

In terms of motivation, I think he can be quite tricky to pin down. He claims his motivation is to "live a life without mystery," but that's in the No Way Home stream when he's angrily berating c!Tommy, and personally I don't see this as a terribly reliable admission. I'm not saying he isn't interested in discovering the secrets of life and death, but if you pay more attention to his actions than his words, I think it's fairly clear that this motivation is second to his desire to help c!Dream. He doesn't just want answers, he wants to help c!Dream get answers. What this tells us is that, in a complete reversal of his "money-motivated hired goon" facade, Punz is actually very discerning when it comes to who he's willing to pursue long-term projects alongside. Will he work FOR anyone? Perhaps (he certainly wants you to think so.) Will he work WITH anyone? Hell no.

Another thing I find really interesting is his relationship with Sapnap and how it informs his relationship with Dream. The two of them have been on opposing sides of various conflicts at various points, but Sapnap seems to continue to see Punz as a friend throughout the story, and Punz plays along even after the staged finale. He helps Sapnap and Karl plan their wedding, Sapnap even says he wants Punz to be a groomsman! The two of them are so interesting in relation to Dream, it's a really under-explored dynamic imo! Former brothers-in-arms vs current brothers-in-arms. I think you could definitely argue that, post-prison, Punz is trying to be Dream's replacement for Sapnap in all ways except one: he isn't going to tell Dream no. He's the yes man Sapnap couldn't be.

Also, I think it's important to remember who he was and what sort of stuff he was up to prior to his involvement in the major plot points. He was a beekeeper! He liked giving gifts, and still does! His sense of humor is goofy and sometimes pretty immature, just like c!Dream's. He wants to be respected by the people he respects. He takes good care of his things. In short, assistant manager at the necromancy store isn't his only occupation.

(Lmk if you want clips for any of these points btw! I’ve done a lot of generalizing in this post but I’m happy to find clips if that’s helpful for you.)

[t4tpumpkinduo]

does anyone think abt the fact the cq keeps a fucking manburg flag in the middle of his ender chest. does anyone care

[lucyslenses]

Thorndale is next.

Shot on Kodak Portra 400.

[shopmoonymoss]

pre-order is now up !!

and i ordered a test batch of them !! so as soon as they arrive ill show you them irl !!

[llitchilitchi]

oooookay, I'm not super versed in dsmp lore and I don't even really know the whole events in chronological order. but!!!! I love your monarchy restoration au. your art is so gorgeous. and the emotions there ... man

can you please give me some guideline of what should I know from the og lore to understand your au? or maybe some summary of your au?

just talk about it I really want to interact!!! :D

hi, editing Li here, the summary ended up being over 2k words. then I realised you asked for a summary to the AU, which is part of the masterpost. I went over the lore in brief, I promise it's just brief despite the length and doesn't tackle All there is to the SMP

okay, lemme try and speedrun the lore of the dream smp - given that the story of monarchy restoration centers around the Dream Team, or at least the parts that I shared, I'll be focusing on them. this will get long and I'm really sorry jghdfjd

the core ideas you should know is that: Dream, George and Sapnap were close friends, but they drifted apart as time went on due to conflicts on the server. Dream crowned George as King, but then due to George doing badly as a king and this position putting him in danger made him dethrone George, which made the rift between them grow. they were once inseparable, and now George and Sapnap thought of Dream as obsessed maniac who no longer cared for them as people. after Dream got put in prison and tortured, he broke out, and this is where the lore of Monarchy Restoration diverges from the original story of the SMP and becomes an AU, as instead of reuniting with Punz as intended, Dream is too weak and injured to do much and runs into George, who takes him in.

now for the Actual Lore Recap:

at the very beginning of it all, there were two friends - Dream and George. they found a little piece of the world for themselves, and everything was fine. then a third came, Sapnap, and then more people joined, and they lived in the same house in the middle of the lake and things were okay.

months passed, and fights turned into splits in the community and a community turned to factions, and the conflicts of factions were intertwined with interpersonal fights. (the interpersonal conflicts? the disc saga, aptly named over 2 music discs that were used as a bartering chip and have a pretty good significance in the overall story. put a pin into that.)

the two factions at play were the (retroactively named) Greater SMP and L'Manburg which declared independence from the Greater SMP on basis of xenophobia. they lost the war against the Greater SMP, the final fight being a duel between Dream and the original owner of the discs (Tommy). a deal was struck after, where Tommy offered his discs in exchange for independence (or independance, if you want to stick to the original text)

an important aspect of this war is to note that Dream offered one of the people on L'Manburg's side a deal - they betray the faction and get to become the King of the Greater SMP. this establishes monarchy in the story. they accepted, betrayed their allies, got the role of a King with the promise of 'staying neutral and uninvolved in further conflicts'.

I'll breeze through the Manberg era for the most part (despite being the most interesting one, imo). L'Manburg ran a presidental election, the original leader (who wanted to take power by scamming the whole thing) lost, and the new leader of L'Manburg (renamed to Manberg, because they're not taking any L's anymore) exiled the OG president and his right hand man Tommy, things went bad. the two exiled men started a new faction (Pogtopia) that they hoped to use to take back their "rightful place" and were given support from Dream because the new Manberg was a little too expansive. (he ended up siding with Manberg last minute for Yet Unknown Reasons, we will get to them, again, put a pin in it)

the King of the SMP very vocally sided wih Pogtopia, which was a betrayal to the core principles of their position as King. the King was dethroned, and Dream put his best friend George on the throne, with him and Sapnap serving as his knights.

upon the defeat of Manberg by Pogtopia (since Manberg's authoritarian regime ended up driving people out and most joined Pogtopia, Dream and his people fought for Manberg only as mercenaries), one of the core allies of Pogtopia - an anarchist, the blood god himself, Technoblade - turned on his former allies because they told him it was about defeating a tyrant, but all they wanted was to kill one tyrant and put their own people in his place. Techno then fled into exile.

next chapter begins after the rebuild of L'Manberg, yet the L' is back, under a new rule given that the OG president uhhh Blew Up The Country with several megatons of TNT and then persuaded his father into killing him.

King George is vibing. he is unaware of all faction wars, builds himself a holiday house far away from everything, enjoys time with new friends, all while Dream grows more and more distant due to trying to keep what is left of his old life together.

the reason the home is important to mention is that, once peace has settled over the world, Tommy decided that the discs that he traded for independence are His, in fact, and he needs to steal them - or barter for them in any shitty way possible. he still had tons of grudges against Dream, and in one of these half-grudge fueled fuckeries, he and one other character set fire to George's holiday home.

Dream found it in ruin and still burning when he came see his friend with a bouquet of flowers. there are several interpretations to this, and since Dream himself never really specified, there's a speculation that he thought that this event maybe killed his best friend, and given that George is the King of the Greater SMP, an attack by the right hand man of the current L'Manberg president on the physical property of the King of a rival faction is de-facto a war declaration.

so we are presented with an ultimatum, where Tommy is either exiled or a war starts. (exile won. it was voted on by the fans we wanted that bitch Out. this is not quite as important but the dynamics shaping up between Tommy and Dream had a massive impact on the plot.)

while Tommy is in exile, George becomes rather friendly with a new budding faction on the server. his involvement with them means that his neutrality vow was broken, and given how frequently he got harassed by L'Manberg, Dream decided to dethrone George, and put the previous King back in power. this dethronement caused a huge rift to form between George and Dream (and Sapnap, who sided with George) and the three of them fell apart with the parting words from George to Dream being "Just say you hate me."

I'm sure this won't have any lasting effects on the man who was tearing himself apart to make the world the same as it was when it was just the two of them

now in brief: the L'Manberg cabinet decided to take revenge on Techno after he turned on them after they tricked him into helping them against Manberg. the punishment? execution. how did they achieve that? they hunted him down, threatened to kill his animals, told him he will get a court process but just set him up in a guillotine. Dream intervened and saved him, thus earning a favour from Techno because both of them are traumatized warriors with trust issues that rather treat kindness as currency. Tommy runs away from the place he was restricted to in his exile, moves in with the anarchist-in-retirement-gone-pacifist Techno, the two of them end up teaming up for the time being as Techno protects him from Dream. L'Manberg in the meantime decides to host a festival to show that they are peaceful now, and nothing bad will happen again :) it takes place a week after they unlawfully tried to execute Techno, and the festival is meant to serve as public execution of Dream. However, the festival is cut short when Dream storms in because the original house where he and his friends lived - known as the Community House - got blown up. he blames L'Manberg and Tommy, and after a short conflict that happens then he declares that L'Manberg has a day to evacuate and him and Techno agree to blow up the country. a second time. and completely now.

so L'Manberg is gone now and the members of the faction scatter. within days, Tommy receives an invitation from Dream to come get his discs (I didn't know how to include it, but after the whole 'setting George's house on fire' Tommy tried to barter for the discs and for Dream to ignore him setting the house on fire, all while trying to leverage things that Dream held dear. attachment to objects and people is a running theme in here. Dream then proceeded to give his "I don't give a fuck about Spirit, I don't give a fuck about anything actually" speech, basically telling everyone they have nothing to leverage against him and he will destroy them if he needs to and them holding something hostage won't bother him.) This sets the stage for the Disc Finale. Tommy and his best friend Tubbo make their way to a specific location, far away, all alone, where they are to fight against Dream to win the discs back. they lose spectacularly and Dream reveals his "grand plan" where he has a vault to gather "all the precious items people own to control them" (and I wrote "grand plan" because it was a farce. it was a show, it was staged, all just to get Tommy to leave him the fuck alone and stop meddling with his greater plan. what is the greater plan? fuck if I knew.)

the whole thing is then intercepted when a large group of people, one of which is Dream's right-hand-man Punz who was running errands for him before, and more importantly, Sapnap. he's beaten and just as he is about to be killed, he reveals his secret: the reason he sided with manberg, all those months ago, is because in exchange for his services he got a book of necromancy. he can now bring people back to life. because of this, he is locked up in an inescapable prison in case anyone needs to use the book.

Sapnap and George are very much under the impression that Dream doesn't care for them. Sapnap comes visit Dream once, promises to return, never does. George doesn't even bother coming in, instead sleeping his days away and it catches the eye of a deity who wears the same face as his beloved Dream, and he loses himself to the illusion of being reunited with his best friend in a world where everything is perfect.

another important thing to note is that Sapnap stumbles upon a Book Of Death (yes, its death note, sapnap is a weeb, it even functions the exact same.) the thing about the book of death and the book of necromancy is that they are both books that were placed into the world by the deity wearing Dream's face (known as DreamXD, or XD for short, yes it's a little silly) and XD reveals to another character (a somewhat-deity, Foolish) that the books and their owners are intertwined in a way, and if one were to die the other dies with him.

so we have three friends, one locked up in prison and seen as nothing more but an object to use (Dream), the other a man who watched his friends, his parents and his lovers fall apart (Sapnap) and a man who cannot face the world falling apart and the loss of his friends so he gives into an illusion created by god in his dreams. and all of them have a strange tie to a stranger god.

this very fractured relationship the three have, along with their ties to the god, were the main driving force behind making this AU.

the last thing you should probably know is that Dream was locked in prison for 10 months, starved, tortured, with little to no social contact until Techno was locked in with him, but with the use of some fun magic Techno managed to escape and then "return the favour" from when Dream saved him from execution, and broke him out of prison.

there's a lot of little nuanced things I probably forgot about but this is the core of it all I hope it helps

[sing-me-under]

Speaking of writing, I’m trying to describe El Rapids as like an actual place where people live, but like??? It’s literally a giant square of dirt with a billboard and a small black and red pyramid with beds inside??? How the fuck does one describe El Rapids as a place? Should I have just interpreted as a semi-functioning campsite or instead of a proper nation?? How do people normally describe El Rapids??????

Edit: I’ve decided to just vaguely refer to the architecture as blackstone peaks and be done with it.

[plethoraworldatlas]

The United Nations' top humanitarian affairs officials on Friday called for an immediate deescalation of hostilities in Sudan, where rival factions in the military government have been fighting for a year and where an attack on the city of El Fasher is reportedly imminent.

About 800,000 people in the city, the capital of North Darfur state, are in "extreme and immediate danger," U.N. aid operations director, Edem Wosornu, told the U.N. Security Council earlier this week, as she reported that clashes between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are nearing El Fasher.

Fighting between the two groups has intensified in recent weeks, forcibly displacing an estimated 40,000 people.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Friday that the security situation in North Darfur has left more than a dozen aid trucks with relief supplies for 122,000 people stranded in neighboring Northern state, unable to proceed into the only capital city in Darfur that is not controlled by RSF.

"A patchwork of armed actors, including the Darfur Joint Protection Forces, the SAF, and the RSF control different parts of the El Fasher area," Human Rights Watch reported this week. "Tense calm alternating with episodic fighting has prevailed for months."

Since April 14, when RSF began to push into El Fasher, at least 43 people—including women and children—have been killed due to fighting between the SAF and RSF.

"Civilians are trapped in the city, afraid of being killed should they attempt to flee," said Seif Magango, spokesperson for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk. "This dire situation is compounded by a severe shortage of essential supplies as deliveries of commercial goods and humanitarian aid have been heavily constrained by the fighting, and delivery trucks are unable to freely transit through RSF-controlled territory."

The lack of humanitarian aid in North Darfur has pushed the state toward a famine, with one child dying of starvation every two hours, according to a February report by Doctors Without Borders.

In December, the U.S. State Department announced an $85 million sale of radar and other military equipment to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which The New York Times reported last year has been covertly supporting the RSF.

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) proposed a joint resolution to block arms sales to the UAE in January, in light of its support for the paramilitary group.

[astralpenguin]

it's interesting seeing the huge difference in attention (hits, kudos, bookmarks) that fics get when they're m/m compared to when they're literally any other category and by interesting i mean. well.

[snowangeldotmp3]

re: the food at the byers

i was gonna ask “why is the party always at the wheeler’s when the byers have superior food!” and then i realized. italian karen wheeler.

karen's authentic lasagna strikes again...

although consider: on special occasion (and bc the wheeler house is bigger) joyce and karen make a special latin/italian dish to appease everyone