#i put 5 hours into this please

[tealottie]

tumblr don't let this one flop

[mercurymacaroons]

arrives 15 min late with a latte

......sup

[shepscapades]

Um. Ok. Still reeling from the fact that bbno$ is canon in your universe and produces music. What

(Also I loooove your dbhc au!!!!)

bbno$ is also a hermitcraft watcher I would know we’re super tight

[emotionalwhump]

James Fox and Dirk Bogarde on The Servant (1963) Dir. Joseph Losey (P. 1/3)

- "You won't get many better than me, you know. What do you want? An old hag running around the house, getting you up in the morning at the crack of dawn, telling you what to do? My only ambition is to serve you. You know that, don't you?" -

[supernovaa-remnant]

L’manberg, Nationalism, and c!Dream

Okay, I know it’s been done to death, but I’ve been reading Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities for a class which talks about nationalism as an imagined community, so nationalism has been on my mind. And, of course, my mind’s natural progression was to start thinking about L’manberg and nationalism again. So, without further ado, here’s my post on L’manberg, Nationalism, and how that played a role in c!Dream’s story arc. 

(Also, I haven’t written an essay in ages, and I haven’t done analysis in ages, so please cut me some slack lol)

It’s under the cut because this is a very, very long post (3.2k words long, in fact). (you can also read it on google docs if you'd prefer).

What is Nationalism?

To start this all, we need to take a moment to step away from Minecraft roleplay to actually talk about nationalism itself. Since I know most of you are here to hear about the Minecraft roleplay aspect, I’ll try to keep it as brief as possible, but it is very important for context. I’ll bold (and color) the main points if you just want to read those before skipping down to the L’manberg section, but you’re more than welcome to read all of this. 

To understand nationalism, you need to understand a bit about how it came to be, which requires a bit of knowledge about the transition from pre-modern to modern times. In general, this transition is often thought to have occurred in the mid-18th century during the Age of Enlightenment and during the time when a lot of revolutions were taking place, such as the American Revolution and the French Revolution. But it’s important to note that there isn’t really such a clear cut line of when this transition from pre-modern to modern times happened, and, in many ways, this change is still occurring to this day.

The most important aspect of this change to think about in the context of this post is in terms of religion, though I will also briefly talk about the shift from dynastic rule to democracy. I want to start off by briefly talking about this because, in many ways, nationalism has taken on the role that religion held in pre-modern times. (Side note: this isn’t to say nationalism replaced religion, but the widespread role of religion in people’s lives today is different than it was in, say, the 14th century). 

In pre-modern times, religion gave people a sense of belonging, and this idea of belonging is something I’ll come back to, but, for now, you should know that nationalism gives a similar sense of belonging. I won’t get into too much detail about why Anderson specifically says this is a sense of belonging to an imagined community, but it basically comes down to the fact that you’ll never know everyone in your community (whether that be religious or national), but you still feel a sense of belonging to the collective.

“Okay, Stella, very interesting, but you still haven’t defined nationalism.” Alright, alright, I’ll define nationalism, which requires me to define a nation. In Anderson’s words, from page 6 of Imagined Communities, “it is an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” I want you to take a note specifically of it being inherently limited and file that away for later. 

I said I was going to briefly discuss the shift from dynastic rule to democracy, so I’ll do that now. So, a couple things about these dynastic rules with centralized power: firstly, it was believed that the monarchs had some sort of divine right to rule from God (see how this ties into religion?), and, secondly, a lot of borders were less defined the further you got from the centralized powers. Obviously, with the shift from pre-modern to modern times, both of these things changed, bringing the idea of giving power to the people, and also bringing more concrete borders.

Anyway, moving on. Nations are imagined as inherently limited because no one imagines one nation as encompassing all of humanity. Yes, in modern times borders are very concrete and defined, but it goes beyond that—in a person’s mind, nations are limited because there are always people who do not belong to the nation. It’s not often thought about, but with a sense of belonging comes exclusion. The entire concept of belonging comes from the idea of being with people who are similar to you, and this implies the existence of people who are so dissimilar that you don’t belong with them, and, thus, they don’t belong with you. It can easily become a double edged sword, I think; there is comfort in belonging to a collective, but it can be all too easy to fall into an “us vs them” mentality, which is going to be an important point moving forward.

So, how does this all relate to a Minecraft Roleplay?

L’manberg and Nationalism

Onto the fun stuff! Minecraft Roleplay! Obviously, L’manberg is a nation, so I’m sure you can already see how nationalism is going to play a role, but let’s get into it. First, though, I’d like to give a minor disclaimer that not everything is going to fit perfectly simply on account of the fact that the DSMP takes place in a very sparsely inhabited world, and, honestly, that alone makes governmental structures of any kind really interesting to look at, but I digress since it’s not the point of this post. (It also means that nationalism as talked about in this post isn’t really an imagined community like Anderson claims it is. From a meta standpoint, you could say this sense of nationalism actually leaked into the audience itself, but in the story it’s not really an imagined community).

The DSMP starts out as a world with no borders and no governmental structures of any kind—it starts with no nations. Rather, the DSMP in itself is a cohesive community to which everyone belongs. It’s not a community like nationalism, nor is it a community like religion, nor is it an imagined community in any way. As previously stated, the DSMP is a sparsely populated world, and, at least at the start, everyone knows each other or knows of each other as an individual. This sense of belonging is more akin to a group of friends than anything else, which I think makes the introduction of nationalism especially interesting. 

c!Wilbur. What a guy, am I right? He shows up to the server, and he brings with him capitalism and the idea of monopolizing resources—there’s an interesting post to be made about that, I’m sure, but not the point of this one—and, most importantly, he brings with him the concept of a nation. He’s putting up borders, putting up walls, and essentially dividing a place that used to be united, citing L’manberg as an independent country, which is does not include everyone in the server (it’s limited), and which is separate from the DSMP and essentially is its “own server” (it’s sovereign). Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s ✨nationalism✨

I’ve seen posts talking about the fact that L’manberg was specifically satirizing nationalism, and though, despite my efforts, I couldn’t find these posts (if anyone has them please send them to me! I’d love to re-read them and link them in this post), I do think it’s true. I think there’s a lot to be said about L’manberg from a narrative and meta standpoint, and I think there’s a lot to be said about the fact that c!Wilbur was always written as a villain in the story (and not just during the Pogtopia arc, despite popular belief), but I can’t get into it all in this post. So, what I do want to do is come back to the concept of belonging and how that always comes with exclusion, and I want to talk about the “us vs them” mentality.

The reason I say L’manberg is satirizing nationalism is because it takes these facets of nationalism to the extreme. It’s not just a place made to give people a sense of belonging which in turn creates exclusion; L’manberg is a xenophobic nation, and I would go as far to say that its founding was based more on exclusion than inclusion. That is to say, the exclusive aspect was not just an unfortunate yet inevitable side effect of creating a nation. From the very start, L’manberg was founded on the exclusion of non-Europeons, and, more specifically, the exclusion of Americans. Sapnap actually originally wanted to join, but he was denied because he’s American. L’manberg wasn’t ever some place accepting of anyone who came to it, and it wasn’t a place to be free from tyranny, but let’s get into the idea of L’manberg going against tyranny. 

The “us vs them” mentality is already extremely dangerous and something to be wary of, and it’s something I think we should constantly be checking ourselves on, but L’manberg takes that to a further extreme. I don’t want you to think this point is completely separate from the point I made before, because they do very much connect to each other and are intertwined. Nations are limited. This means there will always be people who don’t belong to any given nation. Obviously, in this case, members of the greater DSMP do not belong to L’manberg. (I think it’s also helpful to remember that c!Wilbur specifically didn’t allow dual-citizenship; c!Tubbo initially wanted to be a citizen of both the greater DSMP and L’manberg, but that wasn’t allowed, so in the end he became a citizen of only L’manberg).

But, this wasn’t just a case of the greater DSMP being separate from L’manberg. No, they were tyrants that L’manberg was escaping from. c!Dream was a tyrant that L’manberg was fighting against. It’s taking the “us vs them” mentality to an extreme of “we are the righteous good guys fighting against oppression and tyranny, and they are the tyrants trying to oppress us.” It sure sounds like a noble cause—and you can always count on c!Wilbur to spout pretty words that convince people to play on his terms—but is that really the case? In a place that previously had no nations and no real defined hierarchy of power, how could tyranny exist? As I said before, the DSMP previously was more like a group of friends living in a commune than anything else, and tyranny doesn’t really seem applicable in that context, does it? This is c!Wilbur spinning a narrative that is going to continue to affect the SMP all the way to the very end, and it’s also what places c!Dream and c!Tommy on opposite sides from the very beginning, by establishing that extreme “us vs them” mentality.

(Oh, it should also be noted that the “us vs them” mentality very often leads to the dehumanization of the other side, so keep that in mind for when we get to c!Dream). 

(Also there’s something to be said about the L’manberg revolution being heavily based on Hamilton, which is based on the American Revolution, which was a very key part of the transition from pre-modern to modern times and how that relates to nationalism, but this post is already getting long enough).

So, yeah, L’manberg was satirizing nationalism. And, ultimately, L’manberg was never good for the server as a whole.

c!Dream and Nationalism, even in the wake of L’manberg

Ough. c!Dream… :( oh he really did walk the path laid out for him by c!Wilbur to the very end, didn’t he?

Listen, everything c!Dream does on the server is ultimately tied back to the founding of L’manberg, and, in turn, to the introduction of nationalism to the server. One of c!Dream’s primary goals is unity (or, specifically, the unity and simplicity of the server from pre-L’manberg times), and this is antithetical to nationalism, or, at least, to the extreme form of nationalism that L’manberg brought. Because nationalism brought division, and division brought conflict, and conflict brought death (specifically canon deaths). And, well, we all know how much death is a motivator for c!Dream.

(Also, there is something to be said about the start of nationalism and nations on the server not being framed as a good thing in the narrative, how it was satirizing and criticizing the concept of nationalism, and there’s something to be said about how the narrative agrees with the group of anarchists—the Syndicate—who push against the idea of nations. But, well, that’s also a post for another day). 

Now, obviously, unity is not c!Dream’s only motivation—actually, I think we’d all agree that the thing that motivated c!Dream the most was fear. But, a lot of this fear does tie back to L’manberg and the narrative built by c!Wilbur. So, let’s for a moment take a look at how this narrative affected other people’s perceptions of c!Dream.

Remember how I said the “us vs them” mentality often leads to dehumanization? Well, well, well. Listen, this is dreblr. The dehumanization of c!Dream has been talked about to death, but that’s because it’s always relevant to his character!! And I’m here to say that this dehumanization started all the way back during the L’manberg revolution when c!Wilbur labeled c!Dream a tyrant. Obviously the dehumanization of c!Dream is incredibly apparent with the revive book and in Pandora’s Vault, but this is not a post about the box, unfortunately (I’m sorry—I know we all love the box here 💔).

c!Dream’s dehumanization started the moment he was labeled as a tyrant and the moment he was labeled as the “enemy.” He became the “them” in the “us vs them” mentality that was adopted by L’manberg. He’s the oppressor they need to defeat, and he’s the monster that needs to be slain. And this is important because this never went away. Even after L’manberg was gone, the concept of nations and the concept of “us vs them,” never went away! c!Dream was still the enemy that needed to be killed! And, over the course of time when L’manberg was still around, c!Dream lost pretty much everyone. Everyone was turning against him, people were using attachments against him, and people wanted to kill him (New L’manberg was planning to execute him under the false pretense of a peaceful celebration!). And, yes, he did plenty of bad things during this time (namely exile), but I think we should also remember that most people did not know about what happened during exile at this time. They wanted to kill him because he was powerful and dangerous, and he wasn’t with them so he was against them because that’s the narrative L’manberg created—if they’re not with us, they’re against us.

Everyone was against him, and he was spiraling (pushed further by the existence of the revive book) to the point that he commissioned the build of a giant, obsidian, inescapable prison and he locked himself in there with the hope that it would protect him and save his life. (☹️) Obviously that didn’t work like he’d hoped, but… well… 

As I said before: none of this stuff went away even after L’manberg was gone. The concept of nationalism didn’t magically disappear from the server just because L’manberg was destroyed. Nations kept popping up. The server kept splitting itself into more pieces and factions, and it all became so convoluted. I think it’s important to remember the population of the SMP—they don’t really have enough people to make functioning governments, yet they keep trying to make nations, anyway. They’re following L’manberg’s footsteps. They’re chasing this concept of nationalism.

Obviously this affected everyone’s lives, but it really did ruin c!Dream’s life. The introduction of nationalism is what causes c!Dream’s life to essentially start falling apart. I don’t want to rehash stuff that’s already been said a lot in dreblr, so there’s a lot about c!Dream’s motivations and story that I’m not including, but I want to bring our attention to a certain line c!Dream said in the finale streams: “Why can’t things be simple again?”

Because things were simple before all this! It was a group of friends making a home!! They built the community center because the server was meant to be a cohesive community of friends. There was never a need for nations or governments! It was just a group of friends making a home together! And then it all became so convoluted, and there were nations when there didn’t need to be any, and people were being divided into sides and being divided into “us” and “them,” and it was so irrevocably different from what the server started as. And I don’t think c!Dream ever really figured out how to accept that it was irrevocable :( and even he himself was blindsided by the story crafted by L’manberg and by c!Wilbur, to the point that he didn’t even fully understand his own goals! Because he (and everyone else) got so used to nationalism on the server and factions and conflicts and “us” vs “them,” that he didn’t even realize he just wanted things to go back to how they were :( oughhhh c!dreamie :((

Sorry to devolve into emotions at the end of this, but it’s not an academic paper, so I think you should cut me some slack. It’s just :( “I don’t ever want to be alone” because with nationalism comes exclusion and it eventually brought c!Dream to a point where he was so, so alone and :( He makes me so sad </3

Anyway, the reason the DSMP didn’t end with c!Dream dead at c!Tommy’s hands is because that was never the point of the story—that was the narrative L’manberg was trying to spin, but that was never what the story was actually about. It took up until the very end for them to break free from the story of L’manberg.

(And, it’s been mentioned many times before, but there’s a reason this was never able to happen until c!Wilbur was removed from the narrative. c!Dream and c!Wilbur and c!Tommy are absolutely crucial in each other’s character arcs, and you can’t really understand any of the duo relationships without considering the third (says the person guilty of writing c!Dreambur fanworks without always thinking about c!Tommy lmao, but hey at least it’s not analysis, right?) but that’s also a post for another day).

I never really know how to conclude things. I’m kind of worried I’m forgetting stuff, and I apologize if I did forget stuff, but I’ve been working on this for, like, 4 and a half hours and am getting tired lmao. But my main points are that L’manberg was satirizing and criticizing nationalism, that the concept of nationalism stuck with the SMP until the very end, and that the concept of nationalism from the beginning set up c!Dream to be the villain (and, really, this is largely in part because L’manberg from the beginning set up c!Dream to be a villain, and I don’t think you can feasibly separate L’manberg from nationalism). Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk! Feel free to ask questions and discuss further, and I will do my best to respond lol.

[hinaliix]

𝓐𝓷𝓰𝓮𝓵 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓗𝓲𝓼 𝓦𝓸𝓻𝓼𝓱𝓲𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓻 🪽

[palukoo]

anyone else dreaming of manderley??

[cinammonelles]

(guy who is normal about traveler abroad voice) hey man how's it going

[squisheebugdoodles]

Okay Here Is The Problem: everything costs money and yet money is something that i just literally never have. solution? kill the idea of money so that nothing costs anything Please. i'm so tired

[alyona11]

I colored Tisiphone and Johnny

[queeraak]

hey again

i haven't been super active lately, but it's because i finally got an apartment! i'm not homeless anymore. the downside is that my deposit being split up means that i don't know if i'll be able to pay my rent and phone bill at the end of the month (with absolutely no money for food or necessities). i get paid next week, but i don't think my paycheck is going to make it at all, due to having to take less work days for school, and taking money out for food. my situation won't be as bad after the next two months when my deposit is paid for. i am trying to get assistance for this but i have a very limited amount of time.

i'm going to be re-linking my k*-fi for donations in the replies, and i'm still also doing emergency sketch commissions for anyone who donates over $15 (i decided to move it up from $10 since i don't have a lot of time to draw), ask for details if you would like one. i also accept tips on here if that is faster. hopefully i won't need to have this notice for very long, as i might have time to get a better job after this (i'm still being paid a dollar less than every one of my coworkers despite multiple discussions i've had with my managers and higher ups. :))

[makingshortstorieslong]

Rest in peace, Blackie.

She was only mine for 2 years after being my grandparents' baby for 12 but she was the best roommate I ever had and maybe the best I ever will have. My grandpa named her Blackie (and her friend "Orangey") when she was a street cat he was feeding. My grandma named her Bebe when they brought her into the house. I called her "Cat" and "Babes" and "Blackie" and "Blackie-baby" and "Bebe." She liked to have her cheeks brushed and to sit in the same room with me while I studied and sometimes to play fiercely with a ribbon for about five minutes before calling it a night, and after she warmed up to living with me she used to wait at the bottom of the stairs until I would go up to bed so she could curl up taking up most of my pillow and purr me to sleep. She's been living with my parents the last two years and was probably 18 or 19. The last time I saw her was last August and I'm not shocked that I won't see her again but I will continue to miss her as I already have been doing. I saw her on a video call before the end and my brother gave her a forehead kiss for me. I used to always kiss her right there. Goodbye, baby. I love you.

[risingsunresistance]

imagine this has literally anything to do with the resistance anniversary

[dissociache]

Just received a $12,700 hospital bill from the worst and most traumatizing ER visit of my life from last month l m f a o o o

[yoshistory]

I really feel like that video of the woman who's trying to figure out if the woman she's talking to online wants to buy one of her cheesecakes or not when I'm talking to this dude who wants to adopt Rascal

[mellotronmkll]

i like literally wish i didnt feel compelled to rewatch and relisten to the same things over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again its like actually really annoying and frustrating because i just feel like im constantly stuck in a loop doing the same things over and over but thats just literally what its like being autistic like its just frustrating cos i dont want to have to be constantly fighting with myself over it because its like okay we dont need to get stuck in the daily loop of walking in circles for hours listening to the same songs we've heard 200 times or sitting and watching things we've seen 30 times and there are better ways we could be spending our time but the compulsion is SO strong and its just Omfg like its just annoying and horrible because I have to force myself to try to break out of patterns I wish the constant compulsion I have to do the same things over and over and over and over and OVER AND OVER wasnt there at all because it would make things way easier for me and it just makes me feel so dumb.