#most people assumed i was still the token straight

[nocheesepleaseg]

I just LOVE being yanked out of the closet. Great time. Awesome. Peachy.

[precambrian-sea-pancake]

Gonna infodump about my D&D character

(Sadly forced to keep things confidential because my party members follow me on tumblr…you know who you are 👁️👁️)

I’ve only had Gawain for a short time but OH MY GOODNESS I FUCKING ADORE THIS SILLY GUY!!

Also kinda shocked that the moodboard I made for him got that many notes. That’s a first…

Also please enjoy the drawing @hootbon made for me. I will never shut up about their art.

So…for what CAN post publicly…

Gawain is your token Lawful Good Paladin TM. Bonus points for being a protector aasimar I guess. (Though I might multiclass into a bard depending on how things go. It would fit him well. They’re my favorite spell caster.)

His personality is gonna be SO fun to play. Before I explain that, I should mention that he’s actually the youngest of the group at 24. The second youngest is the Kobold (Maran) who’s 37. So he’s a lot more naive and still understanding himself and the world around him. People often dismiss him due to that unfortunately. But, you know, imagine a dumb collage age boy and you get somewhat of an idea.

He’s a very sweet and compassionate guy, extremely extroverted and fun loving…maybe a bit flirty at times. Definitely cracks witty comments and one liners in battles ranging from something clever to “suck my dick” or something dumb like that. That doesn’t mean he can’t be serious, he absolutely knows when he should. Ironically he’s the most “normal” of the group, often being the straight man. Overall heart of gold and just wants to help people.

He has a bit of a rebellious and impulsiveness to him. As clever as he is, he’s mostly driven by his emotions. It’s always a “do what feels right in the moment” rather than logic. In general he’s just very emotional and struggles with hyper empathy. This also causes him to question a lot of the authority around him.

I’d also say he has that Disney Princess syndrome. Gawain is convinced that he has some grand destiny and is meant for more. He’s always wanted to explore and learn more about the world, meet new people and cultures, live a life of glory and adventure. Maybe he’s in over his head or maybe he’s not…we’ll see.

However, another big reason for doing all this is that he wants to understand who he is…more accurately WHAT he is. He was born to humans, raised by humans, and grew up in a mostly all human kingdom. So he grew up thinking he was one despite some strong differences between him and the others. Aasimar are VERY rare, and more like myths to most people, and others don’t even know they exist. So people either assumed he was blessed or cursed, some treated him like the messiah, and others thought he was a freak and dangerous. So yeah, he never felt like he belonged and wants to learn about himself.

Somewhere in his life he ended up becoming a squire and completed his training just before the start of the campaign…

And that’s all the backstory information I can post because my friends will see this.

I guess I can do a bit of trivia:

It’s still D&D lore, but the world itself is homebrew. Humans are actually not the majority race, far from it. Most humans live in a large archipelago with various human nations. I remember the DM said the estimated population of humans was 20,000 to 30,000. The two mainland continents are one dominated by dwarves and the other by elves, along with other races being far more common on the mainland. Not really about my character but I LOVE that detail. It’s somewhat relevant I guess since I said Gawain grew up in a human society.

The god he venerates most is Ilmatar.

His eyes reflect his emotions and power. When using any of his abilities or when under intense emotions (both positive and negative), his eyes will turn a solid gold color.

Prior to his training, he was a courier. His parents ran his town’s postal service and that’s one of the things that got him into the idea of adventuring.

He’s more of a cat person than a dog person. He likes both, but I feel like he’d go for the cat.

The first weapon he ever used was a bow rather than a sword. The specific sword he uses is an arming sword.

He is a wonderful singer, his voice is almost ethereal in when he sings (little aasimar headcanon of mine).

His favorite study is anthropology, but also really likes history and geography. He’s always collecting little souvenirs and trinkets from everywhere he visits.

He keeps a diary and loves to write stories and sketch things. A lot of story inspiration comes from his dreams, which are often very vivid…and he remembers them super well.

Neither of his parents have blonde hair, nor is it a recessive trait they had. It’s actually part of his aasimar traits.

He talks in his sleep because I think it’s funny.

If this wasn’t a medieval fantasy world, he’d definitely use Gen Z slang. Maybe even tell someone “L + Ratio” or “Skill issue” after besting them in battle. In that same hypothetical reality, his favorite band would be Starset and The Score.

He takes good care of his appearance and health, so he does enjoy certain beauty products. A spa day is his ideal day off.

He hates salmon. He thinks it tastes bad and prefers catfish. I don’t know why I even thought of that fact but it’s there.

[utilitycaster]

Unpopular opinion: parts of the cr fandom are really dismissive/ reductive of Travis’s characters. It feels like it’s due to Travis being seen as THE cis het man of the group, and by extension his characters must be heteronormative and bad, despite the fact that you could have queer interpretations of his characters. At the very least, Travis’s characters explore masculinity and the different ways it might look. It’s like the people who are all “ew men are gross and shitty” and act like that’s an absolutely normal reaction to a man just existing.

So this is another one in that I agree with the initial statement, but I'm actually not sure re: the reasoning why. I think it's possible but I could not tell you for sure.

I used to, again, think this was people carrying through Campaign 1 elements well beyond the point where C1 had ended, and so Grog having an intelligence of 6 was being applied to Travis; and this definitely does come through to an extent when people treat Fjord (objectively as smart as Beau without her circlet) as stupid or act shocked that Chetney is the brains of Bells Hells or that he can play a Cerrit, Fjord, or Nathaniel. However, again, I think this is one of those opinions that pops up among people who weren't around for Campaign 1 (or early enough in C2 to be exposed to it regularly) so I don't know if that's the case anymore. It could still be - it could be that Approved Fandom Opinions get passed down even when the logic behind them has long since been lost; that's a really common thing in institutional memory. But I can't say for sure.

I also have in the past credited it to, as you said, people assuming his characters are the cishet guys and then writing them off. That's still possible - I've seen both Fjord and Chetney called "token straight" despite considerable evidence of bisexuality, and they also paradoxically are both commonly headcanoned as trans while still getting called "token straight," which sort of ties into a post I would need to find from someone else from quite some time ago about which cast members are granted agency by the fandom in their choices vs. which are assumed to be the victims of circumstance. And I do think that there are people in fandom who have decided men are icky or whatever, and I used to think this came from a place of bigotry and a slide towards t*rf ideology but I now do genuinely think it's just idiots who don't grant interiority to characters outside their own limited understanding.

But I think it's also useful to consider a few things, most of which I've brought up before:

Travis is extremely offline. He is not here to entertain your headcanons; he has been politely but openly dismissive of some (imo, really fucking dumb) fanon/fan theories. I think the cast frequently talks about how it's their table, and I think that's valid and correct, but Travis is one of the players who lives it the most. He is playing this game with his friends, and he'd like it to be a good story, but if you don't like it, he is not here to make you like it. I think that really fucks with the parasocial connections some people desire with the cast.

Travis's characters tend to examine masculinity as a performance but also the general performance of the self, and the fact that you cannot in the end control how you are perceived entirely, and I think that really unsettles people who have equated presentation with reality and are again, looking for external validation of the self.

Travis can play it big but he's often extremely subtle, especially with his more serious characters, and he's not as easily quotable out of context as some others at the table. I think because he is a lot more naturalistic than dramatic at times (Chetney notwithstanding) and isn't as pithy and quotable in his characters as many of Taliesin's PCs are, and a lot of the strength is in the delivery, he gets overlooked despite being very good with words on the fly.

And finally: this would be a whole post on its own but people are still very foolishly wed to this idea that pressing the big red button in D&D is Wild and Chaotic and haha Big ADHD Man when it's actually how you play D&D if you're not a coward; the button is where the story is stored, and a lot of Travis's strength is that he is extremely good at understanding what the GM wants and supporting it with sufficient grace that it's only visible if you know what you're fucking doing.

[miss-oranje-disco-dancer]

love bites, love bleeds

pairing: re6 chris x reader

cw: p in v (unprotected! wrap it before you tap it, folks!), mentions of blood, medical stuff, death, needles, mention of piers :(, brief mentions of body and weight, angsty sex

summary: very vague about how you met chris in fic (but imagining reader was experimented on in china during the events of re6, and is saved by chris), you patch up each other's wounds and then have sex

a/n: in my angsty era (always, mentally, this is what happens when i "write for myself"), also i played re6 not even that long ago but i straight up forget half of what happens so hopefully this makes sense still, and yes, title after the def leppard song 'love bites' (which oddly enough reminds me of my irl father, but we're going to ignore that bc it slaps)

wc: 2.7k

I feel sorry for all the men who died believing in you.

Piers, I feel sorry, too. Chris sighed, fist hitting the wall softer than the last time. 

“I’m sorry. I feel like it’s my fault,” you say.

“It’s not.”

“If you hadn’t stopped to help me, you could’ve-”

“Don’t. This is the job. We’re supposed to protect people.”

You didn’t know what to say to that. He was right, at least in theory, the BSAA’s mission is to stop bio-terrorism, and the agents who go into the field know that they might not come back, but it doesn’t make their lives disposable. They were just as valuable as you. It could’ve been you, maybe should’ve been. Chris lost the last member of his team to save you, a woman he doesn’t even know. 

Once he calmed down a bit, finally taking a seat next to you, you held out your hand, unsure of its use, and said, “I know I’m not… anyone to you, but I owe you my life and if I can do anything to help, I will.”

“Thank you,” he said, grabbing your hand in acknowledgment, “I appreciate your kindness.”

He let go of your hand and stood up. 

“Chris?” You said. 

“Yeah?”

“I meant what I said. I know you’re more experienced in these things than I am, and I don’t know how much help I can be, but at the very least, if you want someone to talk to, I’m here.”

He smiled, small, but real. “Me too,” he said.

You couldn’t tell if it was just a courtesy, but nonetheless, you accepted. 

“We should get out of here,” he said, “Get to some place safer. We can get patched up while we wait for evac to come.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

He held out his hand to help you up and you took it like a promise, a token of friendship. 

Staying in Lanshaing was not an option. Chris was able to get you both to Beijing where it was safer. You found a place to stay the night in a tourist-friendly area, since neither of you spoke any dialect of Chinese. As it turned out, Chinese McDonald’s is different from American McDonald's and quite tasty, especially after not eating for at least 24 hours. Its hours are similar to that of the operating hours in America, though, which was convenient. 

You assumed the language barrier would not be as much of a problem since most of the people in the city spoke quite a bit of English, but somehow your words got lost in translation and you ended up in a hotel room with one bed, rather than two. With all the hotel staff had gone through that day, you felt it would be rude to complain and ask for another room. Chris agreed. All you both wanted was sleep. You’d sleep on the floor if you had to. 

“How about we wash up a bit and then patch you up?”

You stood up—or tried to—limping towards the bathroom to shower. 

“You need help walking?”

“Do you mind?” you asked, holding onto the wall to keep yourself steady. 

“It’s not a problem,” he said, swiftly making his way to your rescue. He let you put your weight on him. He didn’t even break a sweat, and taking one look at his muscular physique, it made sense. You barely weighed anything to him. Especially since you’d been surviving off scraps for the last few weeks.

“Are you able to shower on your own?” he asked. 

“I think so.” Really, you didn’t think so, you just hoped so, feeling awful about the thought of Chris having to wash your naked body after all he’d done for you. Guilt flowed through your veins along with whatever they’d injected you with to stop the infection that tried to take over your body. You didn’t need shame to accompany it. You felt like a middle-schooler again, scrutinizing your acne in the mirror, except the marks on your body were gashes from claws and bruises from a fall you barely survived.

“Okay. I’ll wait out here for you.”

You shut the door, but didn’t lock it, preparing for what you knew was inevitable. You slipped on the tile, knocking over the shampoo and conditioner and making a ruckus. 

“Are you okay?” Chris called, somewhat panicked. 

Hearing you whimper in pain, he opened the door. 

“I’m sorry for barging in, but-”

“It’s okay,” you said with tears in your eyes, “I’m sorry I’m basically helpless on my own.”

Chris helped you up, trying not to touch—or even look—at the most intimate parts of your body. 

“It’s okay to need help. I shouldn’t have let you go in here alone. I just wanted you to have some privacy, but I think I made the wrong call.”

He left out the ‘as usual’ part of the statement, but you could hear it in his tone. He’d lost so many men, some he couldn’t recall the names and faces of, that you were a consolation prize – not even a prize, really, saving your life was something that allowed him to pretend it was worth the sacrifice. You knew, counting the numbers, that you were not worth the sacrifice.

“It’s okay. I hope it’s not too awkward for you.”

��No, no, with the things I’ve seen, a naked woman is not even close to the most gruesome.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“It wasn’t supposed to be an insult.”

You tried not to let yourself get flustered. But what else was there to feel? You swore you saw a hint of attraction peek through the grief in his eyes.

“How about I hold you up while you scrub yourself down?”

“Sounds good.”

Your team effort was successful. You were much cleaner than before. Chris grabbed you a towel and wrapped you in it before walking you back into the bedroom to get you patched up. 

“Do you not want to shower first?” you asked.

“No, my mission is to get you to safety, so you’re my priority.”

You felt guilty, but knew Chris well enough by now—even though you’d only met him hours ago—to know that he wouldn’t back down on this one, so you didn’t argue. He refused to acknowledge that his stubbornness was his fatal flaw.

He grabbed an antiseptic and a cloth and said, “This is probably going to hurt a bit, but it’ll just be for a second.”

“Okay,” you said, though you knew your wavering tone made your nerves known. 

He pressed the towel to your skin, being as gentle as possible, but it stung. You winced, unable to control your reaction to the stinging pain.

“You’re doing great,” he reassured you, and it should have gone to your brain or your wounds or your heart, anywhere else than where you felt it. Between your legs.  

Chris wrapped your wounds in gauze and gave you over-the-counter painkillers, the best he could manage. 

Chris was able to shower on his own, and you couldn’t help but be a bit jealous that he got to see you naked, and you didn’t get to see him in the same state. 

You waited for him to come back, sprawled out on the soft duvet, still wearing your towel when he returned. 

“Do you need help treating those wounds?” you asked.

“Not sure. I’m going to try to do it myself, but I’ll let you know.”

“Okay. I’ll be right here. I’ll turn away, though, for privacy.”

“Appreciate it.”

You could hear him grunting in frustration, trying to patch himself up. 

“Are you okay?”

“Any chance you can help me? I’ve got most of it done. There’s just a spot on my back that I can’t reach.”

“Yeah, of course. Mind if I turn around?”

“Yeah, go ahead. I’ve got underwear on, so you don’t have to see anything too graphic.”

“I don’t think looking at a naked man would scare me, but this is probably less awkward.”

He directed you to the spot on his back in question, and you helped him bandage it. 

“Do you have a medical background?”

“No. Why?”

“You’re pretty good at this,” he said as you finished up.

“Thanks. I think it’s all the years I spent taking care of kids. They get a lot of boo-boos.”

“Are you a mom?”

“No, no way, not ready for that yet. I’ve just had jobs as a nanny and a teacher.”

“Saving the world one boo-boo at a time.”

“Well, it’s a little bit easier with them. You just put a bandaid on it and kiss it all better.”

“If only you could kiss it all better.”

“I can try.”

He laughed. “You’re welcome to give it a shot.”

You couldn’t tell if he was flirting back or joking in a friendly manner, but you gave him a kiss over his bandage regardless.

“All better?” you asked. 

“A little, but if you could hand me the Advil, that’d be great.”

You obliged with his request, handing him the bottle. He took two down his through without any liquids to wash it down.

“Do you have any extra clothes?” you asked.

“Unfortunately, no. Do you?”

“No.”

“They might have robes somewhere in here… or we can try to wash your other clothes. It might take awhile, though.”

You sighed. “I think my underwear is the only thing without blood on it.”

Ironic, you thought, considering how often your underwear was the only bloody article on your person. Finally, a pair was spared. 

“Did you leave it in the bathroom?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I was going to go get it for you.”

“Oh, thanks.”

You were a little bit nervous about the idea of Chris holding your used panties, but this was a unique scenario. He returned with a pink thong, which he handed to you, clearly trying not to touch it too much. 

“You act like it’s a biohazard. It’s just panties.”

“I’m not afraid of your panties. I just wanted to be respectful.”

But, Chris, would it really be so disrespectful if you just-? 

You slipped on your underwear casually with a ‘thank you’ thrown his way. 

You were already in the sheets when he came to bed. He climbed in hesitantly, making sure to keep an appropriate distance between the two of you. There could only be so much distance, though, when Chris took up such a significant portion of the bed—he’s a large man, nothing he can do about it. 

You found yourself getting closer to him, until you were breathing in the same air, mouths nearly touching. He captured your lips in a kiss. And you accepted it like a gift. 

“Tell me when to stop,” he said.

“I don’t want you to stop. I wanna forget about everything right now.”

Me, too, he thought.

“Fuck me until I forget,” you said. Fuck me until I forget the fluorescent lights of the lab, fuck me until I forget the man’s face when he tied me down, fuck me until I forget the prick of needles and the smell of death.

Chris laid there, silent, mouth moving, but unable to form words. One of his hands cupped your cheek and the other trailed down your arm—respectfully. You didn’t want it respectfully. You hooked one of your legs between his, entangling yourself while you prompted him to come closer. I want you on top of me. I want your body to encase mine. I want to feel small, weightless for a moment. Fuck me until I forget.

When his hands wrapped around your waist, he noticed how much of you he could fit in only two hands. 

“Are you sure about this?” he asked. Still too respectful. 

“Very. I wouldn’t have asked for something I don’t want.”

He mumbled an affirmation into your neck. He was already kissing you. You felt a scrape of teeth against your skin and received an apology when you gasped. “Sorry. Got carried away.”

“No,” you said, “I want more.”

“I don’t want to leave marks on you.”

“I want you to.” Cover the ones I already have. Fuck me until I forget.

You made the orders in bed. He nipped and sucked at the flesh on your neck and collarbone until you got antsy and pushed his head lower. 

“Relax,” he said. “Do that again and I’ll pin you down.”

“Don’t tempt me.” 

His breath was warm against your skin when he laughed. The sensation trailed down to your breasts. He took one of your nipples in his mouth, flicked his tongue over it, while he used his thumb to play with the other one. The soft suction of his lips had you writhing against the sheets—it was the only thing you can do to avoid moaning. The language barrier didn’t mean shit when it came to sex noises.

Soon, Chris pressed one finger into you, then two. 

You hadn’t shaved in a bit—it wasn’t necessary, nor possible, really, in the past week or so. “Sorry I-” But you were cut off by your own moan when Chris’ lips latched onto your clit. You forgot about the embarrassment you felt over the hair that was growing back when you felt Chris laugh into your core when you moaned. That was far more embarrassing. He came up for air and lazily ran his fingers up and down your folds. 

“Stop teasing me and fuck me already.”

Chris scoffed and stripped himself of his underwear. “Thought I was being nice by getting you wet enough before I fuck you.”

Looking down at your naked body, before lust took over his mind entirely, reason stepped in. 

“Shit—uh, do you have a-”

“I don’t want one anyway.” I want to be full of something other than poison and its antidote.

“Fuck, okay.” He took a sharp inhale of breath. A nagging voice in the back of his brain told him this was a terrible decision, but he was just a man being led by his dick. 

Chris was pushing 40, he hadn’t completely lost his sex drive but he wasn’t a horny teen anymore. It had been a while since he’d been this hard. His dick twitched when he attempted the first thrust inside you, making the head of his cock rub against your clit.

All sex is rough sex when you’re injured. You couldn’t do anything fancier than missionary, but when Chris grabbed your ankles and wrapped your legs around his hips so he could fuck you deeper, you thought you might pass out – for all the right reasons. He sat back on his knees so you could see the bulge in your tummy with every thrust. His tip was pressed firm against your cervix as his palm was on your abdomen. You choked out a sob, all words had left your mind.

Chris cradled your head as he increased the pace of his thrusts, so that your head didn’t hit the headboard, which knocked against the wall behind it. Fuck me until I forget meant temporarily. He wasn’t going to leave you concussed. He knew what amnesia felt like and all it meant was reliving the horrors you’d forgotten.

You’d bled and been bandaged. The pain had mostly subsided, and whatever was left- you cried it all out while you were being pounded into the mattress.

Your screams were echoes from that morning. “Help me!” turned into “Fuck me!”. “Please, I need you, fuck—oh my god—I’m coming” you overwrote the pain with pleasure and the meaning of it all changed. All the panting, groaning, cries of each other’s names, his arms wrapped around your fragile frame as he carried you out into the sunshine before the explosion. The relief and then the realization.

The pounding of your heart at a record rate was reassurance that you were alive. You placed your hand on his chest to make sure he was real and this wasn’t really the afterlife, despite feeling like heaven. You’re alive. Fuck me until I forget everything except for your name, except for your warmth, except for the smell of sex. Shaking and sweating in the corner of a burning building, his steady hands lifting your tiny body. Trembling legs as your orgasm approached in the comfort of a hotel bed in Beijing. You screamed his name to let everyone know of the man who saved your life.

You held each other in grateful silence.

[cinnbar-bun]

Important Message

So... haha... been almost a month since I really did anything on this blog...

Listen, I'm gonna keep it straight to you guys, the months leading up to my hiatus were, to put it mildly, some of the most disgusting I've seen in my years as a fanfic writer and fandom enjoyer. This is a bit of a vent post, because, well, genuinely, I really hope the fandom can get better. I'm assuming most of the bad experiences I've had came through people a bit younger/newer to fandom or tumblr/fanfic culture in general. If you want just an update on the blog, I will be posting that shortly after this one.

I'm going to list out some of the shit I had to go through (that I am sure many fanfic writers, but more specifically, POC fandom creators go through). This is a long post. Yeah, also, this is obvious but TW FOR: Racism (including slurs), Islamaphobia, sexism, death threats, suicide threats, harassment, and just flat out horrible behavior.

I'm gonna go list some of the slurs I've been messaged or called, I'll even rate them for you guys <3:

Camel jockey: oooo, haven't heard that one before. get more creative, 3/10

camel fucker: nice, bit more crass, still not original. 3.5/10, just a bit funny

Terrorist: wow, dude, oh my gosh, I can't believe I've never heard that one living in post 9/11 America! Wow! 0/10 try harder

I also don't know where the assumption came from that I was a hijabi... I am not. Calling me a BMO? Pretty unique but sadly does not fit me. :(/10

This barely scratches the surface of what I have dealt with after having been open about my heritage. I'm sorry my very existence offends you and requires you to come out and send me shit about hoping my family dies or that my favorite character brutally hurts me. I have read your messages, and after long consideration, I have decided to no longer be Middle Eastern. Yep, that's right, guys, I am no longer MENA! Don't worry about my family history or anything, I just choose not to be that anymore. There, now you don't have to send me messages about hoping my family gets killed <3

Let's see what else we should tackle.

Should I tackle the fact that I've gotten messages from others to update a fic or answer a request or they will try to self harm or commit suicide?

Should I tackle the fact that some have tried to pressure or guess my sexuality (dude, what the fuck)?

Should I tackle how I got messages from others assuming my place because of my religion?

Should I tackle how I've gotten weird ass messages from people getting mad at me because how DARE I not write certain things during Ramadan?

Should I tackle those things?

I'll save you the hassle, no, I really shouldn't have had to, but fact is, the One Piece fandom has to be some of the worst I've seen and interacted with purposefully in a long time. And I was in the Hetalia fandom way back when. I should not have dumb shit about "liberating" me or oh, oh, oh, I love this one! People asking me if I have 'full armament haki' (I hope you genuinely, genuinely, get the fuck off your phone and go outside. Maybe have a walk and go talk to actual people.)

I've met some genuinely lovely, beautiful, and kind people. They truly are some of the most talented creators I've seen, and I'm grateful they chose to befriend me. The good does outweigh the bad. But the bad? Oh lord, I think you guys are genuinely some of the most disgusting pieces of shits I've ever had the displeasure of meeting.

Fanfic writers are not your slaves. I have a full time job, I have a full time life outside of my tumblr and my writing. I write when I want to because I like to write, and fanfic is a good creative outlet. You sending dumb messages crying about no updates after four days of me posting a new chapter, or threatening to harm yourself because of this is disgusting.

POC creators, especially, are not your fucking tokens. I'm not here to break down every racial stereotype for you. I'm not here to be sitting there mocked with crap I already hear in my outside life. And I sure as HELL am not here for fake support only to be called slurs and mocked the minute I don't do something for you. You are gross, you are not funny, you are genuinely a horrible person and if your ideal vision of humor boils down to the Instagram comments section, all I'm saying is, I'm not wishing you anything positive.

If you read this far, thank you. Truly. This was difficult to place and write down, but it needed to be said, because even to this day I still get messages similar to before.

Do better, One Piece fandom. Do better. Because you are only going to lose the fans who really care and who put effort into making things. How far can you harass fanfic creators, and especially POC ones, with your bullshit before you lose out on things?

I don't need to 'move on'. My identity and my existence is on a completely separate wave than so and so idk, liking a ship or a character. One is fake, and one is literally who I am. Putting false equivalencies to the issues within fandom because it makes you 'sad' is shitty.

I've only given you an idea of what I had to deal with. Now imagine this constantly by random people, both on tumblr and AO3, and then imagine that also in your daily life, on the media, in the news, in the music, on the radio, in the books- fucking everywhere. It's exhausting.

Just... fucking do better. Actually fucking listen to POC. I got nothing else to add that wouldn't just be me repeating the same shit I and others have tried to say.

Just be kind, for gods sake, and remember that creators are human, not the silly avatars we choose.

[atalossofwords]

YOU TASTE THE SILVER - IvanTill WIP (Part 9)

Guys, I don't normally post here unless I have at least another POV ready, but I'm gonna admit this last Ivan POV is NOT working out. I rewrote it three times, and it's still fighting me. Hopefully I can dig myself out of the ditch, but oh well. Y'all can enjoy Till's POV while I suffer.

ON AO3 - part one - part two - part three - part four - part five&six - part seven - part eight

Till's life is going well. He's used to the new house, he's found new inspiration to write and mix more songs ever since Mizi's concert, so he's going live more often, which means his audience has been growing steadily. Dewey got a promotion at work and Isaac is doing an EMT course that will guarantee him a promotion as well.

He's also started chatting more often with Navi, enough so that they are... almost friends? He doesn't want to assume, but Navi is always so happy to talk about anything Till wants that the conversation flows easily. Navi especially likes to know what Till is eating, all the boring details that Till finds himself... eager to share. Till has never been overly chatty, and idle conversation is awkward, but somehow Navi shows so much interest in what he has to say that Till finds himself invested in expressinging himself more, in looking for things to talk about.

Navi likes knowing what Till thinks of the weather, and actively engages with him over which brand of ramyeon is better. Somehow, they can get into discussions over the most innocuous thing, and end up discussing music and lyrics and mixing for hours on end.

They have an ongoing discussion about the use of english in lyrics, which frequently comes back up whenever one of them thinks of another argument, and also an untold pact of sending animal pictures to each other; Till sends pictures of any dog he sees on the street, because Navi said it's his favorite animal even if he can't have one, and Navi sends back cat pictures, since his sister has one and cat pictures are easier than snake ones, which are Till's favorite animal.

Till feels... warm, about it. He's never had many friends, being a lone wolf throughout his school years; he was always in detention, or going directly home after school. He'd always had a temper, something that only really cooled after he left school and was allowed to focus on music. Dewey was his brother, not his friend, and Hyuna was more of an acquaintance than a close friendship.

Till also felt. Guilty, maybe? About the amount of money Navi kept spending on him. He wasn't a friendship expert, but he was pretty sure friends didn't send you almost 50$ dollars when you complained about picking between ramyeon and tteokbokki and told you to pick both.

(Till knew it was a mistake to migrate over from texting to Kakaotext, since now Navi could send him money directly through that. But he also had to admit the amount of stickers Navi used was beyond cute.)

Navi had also sent him some other gifts, beyond the spontaneous kakaopay transfers and normal stream donations; he's sent Till a collection of rings after bothering Till for a week straight to give him his ring size, a comfy sweater that Till didn't take off for a week due to how soft it was, and so on.

Till felt a weird tingling feeling on his stomach, a blush taking over his face whenever Navi sent him anything. He's normally fine ignoring it after a token protest, too practical to actually deny money.

He thinks he should feel bad about it, or something. Dewey told him, a few weeks into his streaming career, that he'd feel awful about getting so much money and not giving it back. Till thinks it's an exchange; he streams and people give him money for entertaining them. For a little while, the same applied to Navi. Why should he care if someone wasted their money on Till? He didn't think gacha companies were at fault for people's spending habits.

That was until they started texting. That was until Navi stopped being just a name on the screen and became a person who liked dogs, did spicy challenges for fun and had strong opinions about the conservation of endangered animals.

Till thought he might start to feel guilty, then, or at least want to pay Navi back somehow.

Instead what he gets is a warmth throughout his chest and an entirely undignified urge to squirm in place. He likes it when Navi spends money on the most mundane things, when Navi tells him to get himself some food. When Navi sends him money with instructions to get something specific Till scrambles to get it, and enjoys the treat with red cheeks and an unknown tightness in his chest.

He doesn't get it, and he's too embarrassed to talk about it with anyone else.

(Reviewing the memory, later on, will show Till the following; the weird warmth, the urge to squirm, it is arousal. Till likes it a lot, when Navi gives him things and tells him what to do with it. He feels spoiled and taken care of and confusedly horny about it all.)

He's doing his best to not care much about it, but his weeks-long wave of good luck seems to have run dry, because he ended up sick some two days ago. He's had to cancel three streams already, and is miserable enough he's debating actually going to a doctor about it.

Luckily for him, he's not coughing or nauseous, which are his least favorite symptoms. He is congested and his nose is running all the time, and he does feel feverish, but there's not much he can do about that except sleep it off.

He's currently huddled into his couch, slowly eating the samgyetang Isaac made for him and watching a show Hyuna recommended. It's a simple, no-thoughts-necessary show; the female MC is a former yakuza member that's trying to leave her past behind and live as a teacher, and the two competing love interests are a big executive type who has a child on the school and is an ass to her but is able to afford a pretty luxurious life as long as she goes along with his plans, or a old member of the Yakuza who fell in love with her when he was a child and is now reforming himself to be able to stand besides her "in the light", as he put it.

Till is cheering on the yakuza guy, mostly because he's a lot sweeter than the asshole executive.

He's also live-blogging to Navi, who has been hovering so badly that Till gave up and allowed the other to get his actual address so Navi can buy him some soup and energy drinks. He thinks he'll regret it later, but he's not complaining right now, when Navi is making sure he has food delivered for every meal and also all the necessary meds.

You [ 5:47PM ] Oh look, the asshole is going on a business trip. Maybe we'll get some good scenes with the yakuza guy now.

Navi [ 5:47 ] You're really invested into this, aren't you? What do you even like in this character?

You [ 5:48PM ] He's just so much better than the asshole. I don't get why girls would ever go for someone who's so rude to them.

Till huffs, looking up at the TV as the in-between episode extra starts. They're always funny, showing the behind the scenes and some interviews with the actors. He likes the main actress well enough, and by what he saw the actor for the asshole is a well-established star that he had no idea existed until now.

Well, the same can be said of the younger yakuza guy. His actor, someone named Ivan, is talking about how he prepared for the role, and Till can't help but be interested. The asshole guy only talked about his physical conditioning, but Ivan is talking about how he talked things over with the director, watched former-yakuza interviews and did his best to research about the motivations of his character.

He's also very handsome, in an endearing way, and Till can't help agreeing with the interviewer when she tells Ivan his fans will love the role, and that seeing him do such an earnest character will get all the girls swooning.

You [ 5:48PM ] Also, seeing the interviews, this Ivan person is just a lot better than the other actor. He cares a lot more about his character, which I think is way more important than how you look.

The interview ends, and Till decides to send another commentary before getting up to fetch more tissues for his nose.

You [ 5:48PM ] I bet Ivan would look cute doing aegyo. He's got the face for it, at least. Though I don't know if actors do that, I've only seen Idols do it on command.

Message sent, Till puts his phone to the side and gathers his little mountain for tissues and shuffles to the trash can, dumping them before refilling his water bottle and getting a new box before snuggling up again.

Navi still hasn't answered.

He frowns. He knows Navi can be busy, he definitely has other things to do rather than keep Till company, but he usually sends a BRB text if he'll be away from his phone for more than a minute.

He's still a little sick, and fervish, and miserable, so he doesn't think too hard about it and messages Navi again.

You [ 5:50PM ] Navi?

Navi [ 5:51PM ] Sorry, hyung. I just got surprised. My name is Ivan as well.

Till makes a little surprised noise. Ivan isn't that common of a name. What are the odds?

You [ 5:51PM ] Wow, it must be weird to share names with someone famous.

Navi answers quickly, but with far poorer grammar than what Till is used to.

Navi [ 5:52PM ] haha yeah well, I got used to it. do you like Ivan?

You [ 5:53PM ] I haven't seen much besides this series, he seems pretty good. Did you have any recommendations?

Navi – or, well, Ivan. Till quickly goes to change his contact name before he forgets – takes some more time to answer, and Till decides he must be busy, so he puts the show back on, doing his best not to sneeze into his soup. It's only as he's almost napping that he gets a text.

Ivan [ 5:52PM ] "Creating Heaven", "So long, not enough" and "Kamera" are tolerable, but hyung should watch some more and tell me what's your favorites!

Till is too sleepy to type, so he just takes a picture of himself giving thumbs up and snuggles back on his couch, Ivan-the-actor's soothing voice talking with the MC lulling him to a nice, dreamless sleep.

part ten

[usaigi]

Modern Blue Lions headcanons

Dimitri

Has difficulties with fine motor skills following the car accident that killed his family and Glenn. Has to use accommodating tools like specific silverware and a laptop to take notes in class. Kids used to be jealous that he got use a laptop in class but he just wanted to be normal

Regular member of his school GSA but everyone assume he's just a straight ally because look at him. Look at his hair. He's straight. His classmates don't discover he's actually bi until a week before graduation when they see him kiss Felix

Also a regular member of the BIPOC solidarity club. Dimitri, Dorothea, Ashe and Constance are the token white allies.

(mental health spiraling) "haha puberty/hormones :) No need to discuss these new symptoms with anyone, it's just normal teenager things" (it is not normal teenage things)

Annette

banned from home ec after starting a fire while making a salad... She's was trying to make homemade croutons...

girl ADHD :)

she got a B on a chem test one and cried about it for 2 days straight

"Maybe if I get all A and get this many awards and get this many scholarships, my dad will love me :)" (girl.. :( )

Frenemies with Lysithea. They're buddies until it's time for exams. Then it's war. There can only be one valedictorian. (death note's "I'll take a potato chip and eat it" songs plays in the background)

Olivia Rodrigo stan

Sylvain

Hasn't said "okay i'm sorry that I looked at Mrs Riley and lightly grazed her left tit" but has said that exact same thing

friend with a car. "yeah we can all fit into my Audi; Annette and Ashe are tiny, just squeeze in and pretend you like each other. We can stick Felix in the trunk" "I'll kill you."

He's in Lacross AND theatre. Ice hockey AND Ice dancing and figure skating. He can do both, he's bisexual

Has to pick between a major sport game and his theatre show. His dad wants him to follow his dream and do the game but Sylvain is getting ready to tell him "no dad i'm giving up your dream." He backs out. He goes to the game.

"You got a perfect score on the college entrance exams?" "Why is it hard?" (he studied so much)

Ingrid

"Gay people are real??? They don't just exist in San Francisco and on Glee???" /gen confusion. Not in a homophobic way, she's just raised in a conservative environment and instead of going on the internet, she hangs out with her horses (Just wait till she finds out about trans people)

When her family was going through a particularly hard financial time, her friends started packing extra lunch. They all know she doesn't accept handouts but Ingrid will never say no to leftovers.

So chronically offline. Who's Billie Eilish? What's Succession? What is Rizz?? They're making another Spider-Man movie!?

Dedue

Vice-president of the BIPOC solidarity club. The school gives them club money and he uses it to make food for the members.

"..." "Go on" "Down with... gringo?" *Claude, Petra, Felix, Cyril, Hapi, Constance, Dimitri, Ashe and Dorothea all clap*

Football/Basketball/Hockey couches keep trying to recruit him. He just wants to garden.

(Tw racism and ref to violence to poc men) "I don't want to antagonist white people. As a large brown man, I'm already perceived as a threat." "That's ok! Your safety comes first. I got this," Dorothea says as she throws eggs at someone's car with a confederate flag.

Mercedes

"I'm joining the war on liberation theology on the side of liberation theology."

"Mercedes! Can you explain your tardiness?" "Forgive me, professor, I was at morning mass." (She was. But she's late because she stop to smoke a blunt.)

In her most angelic, big sister voice, "fuck TradCaths 😊"

Somehow still failing her religious studies class

(tw cults and implied anti semitic conspiracy) Raised in a religious cult where her step dad was the leader until she and her mom escaped. Because of this, did not know Jewish people were real. "I knew they were people in the bible but all I knew was [redact]" (Don't worry, she knows better now that she's not in a literal cult)

Felix

"I fucking hate my dad" "why? Is it cause he didn't accept you being queer/trans?" "No, he was cool with that. He's just fucking annoying."

"Ingrid, what the hell, I'm literally trans. You know this. We've been friends since we were in diapers." "Oh. I forgot." "YOU FORGOT!?"

Wasian. (tw sui joke) @ Dimitri and Sylvain "stop joking about killing yourself--you're appropriating my culture, assholes."

Secret Olivia Rodrigo fan. He only listens to her music on youtube + incognito mode. Only Annette knows. Annette manages to get them concert tickets were they run into Lysithea.

Ashe

Spider-Man stan on main. Somehow he convinces Dedue to be his Ned Leeds to his Peter Parker for Halloween

He knows Ingrid would like the MCU if she watched it, but she's scared of needing to watch 10000 movies

*slaps Ashe's back* You can pack so much anxiety in this guy

Started school in the middle of the year because he's a foster kid. Rumors started spread about him being a harden criminal because he went to juvie. He keeps tries to correct them and say he's never been but Caspar keeps fueling the rumors

"Caspar! Stop telling people I went to juvie! That never happened!" "...You... lied to me? :(" "You made it up!" "Oooh. Right."

[anotherghoul666]

Okay so the thought:

Alkaline is about Sleep.

In the song, Vessel sings about how the subject of the song has changed him (this one's pretty obvious, Vessel was presumably just A Normal Dude before Sleep came to him and chose him), how the subject is undefinable (like how it's been said that Sleep is a very reductive name for what the deity is), and there's also how the song discusses the subject in contrasting terms, like how Sleep gives humans both dreams but also nightmares.

It's less a theory and more just like jumbled thoughts, but a lot of their songs too can easily be read as either love songs or songs about Vessel and his relationship with Sleep.

And we are back with another “AnotherGhoul goes fucking overboard about Sleep Token” essay once again!!! Under the cut: pronoun use in songs, the heteronormativity of the music industry, and a full lyric analysis and break down of the song “Distraction”!

I agree 100% with your “Alkaline is about Sleep” theory. In fact, I personally interpret a lot of Sleep Token's songs as being about Sleep, or about Vessel's relationship with Sleep, or their history through the years. Probably more songs than people would think. It's just my opinion of course, I don't know the guys, I don't know everything, people are gonna have wildly different interpretations of their lyrics I'm sure. There's a lot of "Vessel talks about an real life abusive relationship he's been through / someone he pined for" floating around and that's completely valid! Interpretations are just that, they are subjective to our own lenses and biases and they are wholly personal. I tend to have a big bias of religious trauma, the damages of out of control zealotry and religious mania, and I read Sleep Token's lyrics through that lens. I don't disagree with the abusive relationship interpretation for instance, I just see it as an abusive relationship with your god / your church, while people see it as an abusive relationship with a woman / partner. Both are totally valid.

And when I say most, if not all, Sleep Token songs could be about Sleep, yes I mean even the ones that use she/her pronouns for the subject. In fact, the use of she/her pronouns seems very on purpose to me.

Clearly the band knows how to play the pronouns game in terms of lyrics. Because in interviews and official texts, they do refer to Sleep using he/him pronouns. But I also believe they know how to play the commercial game so damn well (I'd be SHOCKED if Sleep Token was any of these musicians' first band, especially Vessel and II. There is no fucking way you have this level of skill raw on a first project. And I'm not saying this because of technical skill; you can develop excellent technical skill just practicing at home, without any live music experience. I say that because of how confidently Vessel displays voice faults and cracks and the raw jagged edges of his vulnerability; because of how confidently II shits on conventional drumming conventions and techniques for the benefit of his organic flow. Imo, and I say that as a drummer, confidence to mess up and fail while keeping completely in style? You can't get that from playing for yourself alone. Anyway, I digress.)

My point was about commercial sales of music and maintaining the "sellability" of a band. I believe the team at Sleep Token are aware of how male-coded Vessel's voice is, how he'll automatically be assumed to be a man, and thus he'll also be assumed to be straight. So for the intensity and the visceral nature of the lyrics to land with the wider audience, using he/him as pronouns to sing your undying love to and desperation for when you're a male-coded singer? Unfortunately still not possible in today's culture, at least without turning the entire focus of the band into who is Vessel, is he gay, and who is he singing about. Since it's extremely obvious Vessel and the numbers do not want the band to be about them in any way, as stated by their efforts to maintain perfect anonymity and also how they flat out said it in interviews, it would be counterproductive for their mission to have all of the listeners’ attention on Vessel as a man and on his possible relationships. Plus, they also need to make sure their music is commercially viable and reaches the widest numbers possible, because the more numbers, the more worshipers for Sleep. While a male-coded vocalist using he/him pronouns in those heavily romantic / co-dependent lyrics would make them a sensation in the greater LBGTQ+ community, the sad truth is it would alienate a non-negligible portion of the white-cis-straight-men that unfortunately make up most of the fan base for genres like metal, rock, prog, etc, AKA very male dominated genres.

All of that to say: Sleep is She in some songs, Sleep is You in some songs, and there's even an argument to be made for Sleep being I in some songs too. Sleep is the omnipresent prism from which to evaluate and interpret Sleep Token's lyrics.

Which leads me to! Another interesting example of this “Sleep is She” theory. Distraction.

Distraction is the 8th track in Sleep Token’s 2nd full length album, and 4th release overall, This Place Will Be Your Tomb in 2021. This places the lyrics fairly far in Sleep Token’s journey. I view it as a sort of “here we go again, getting even further into the cult than we anticipated” type of song. So I do view it heavily through the religious / devotional lens, and that leads to a good example of Sleep being spoken about with she/her pronouns.

Oh, and I know I can tell I'm falling further again But I won't turn away, it's far too late for me

I assume, given song writing being credited to Vessel and II, that the I in these lyrics represents Vessel himself and/or the numbers / vessels as a whole entity. I will use the term Vessel from now on but if you want to read it as “the whole band” it will be coherent too. Vessel’s indoctrination to Sleep is getting stronger and stronger. It’s now been five years since the beginning of the band (and presumably Sleep’s visit to his dreams). His life likely has completely changed in those five years, and it shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. He’s falling further into the rapture of Sleep, into his worship, into this cult of his, giving the deity more and more space in his life. He can’t stop it or back away either. Not anymore. Not after he’s made his whole life revolve around this band and their god. He’s gone too far. A sort of sunk cost fallacy he’s trapped himself into: can’t back out when you’ve been this transformed by a deity, when you’ been this engulfed and consumed by feelings and emotions for your new god. That’s why people stay in abusive relationships for decades (another nod to the “Vessel is in a metaphorical abusive relationship with Sleep” thing I have firm belief in). That’s why people stay in churches or organized religions or cults for their entire lives. It’s so much harder to disentangle yourself and back out from something if you’ve not been in long. The longer you’re in, the more you’ll feel it’s too late to save yourself.

'Cause I am broken into fractions

Now, the fans of the “the she/her pronouns songs are about a woman in Vessel’s life” interpretation will probably take this like as meaning Vessel’s heartbroken. He’s into pieces after this relationship fell apart or got hurtful. Which, valid interpretation, as I said. But. I also see this as religious and related to Sleep. A core tactic that is used in organized religions and cults is thought reform. To super simplify a complex process performed over months to years of a person’s life, to reform someone, essentially, is to break what the person was initially, and rebuild it as the religion / cult wants. Reform. Re-form. New form, new shape. Reformation, to be reshaped and assume a new form as intended. Sleep breaks the human and reshapes it into the vessel that he needs. This echoes the “Vessel was just a normal dude before Sleep chose him” thought from the initial ask. Vessel has been broken down into fractions over the last five years. Potentially physically, transformed into a non-human creature as the fandom likes to riff on. But at the very least mentally. He is little percentages of himself reassembles and put in new sequences, fractions to make bigger, new equations he can’t even begin to understand. He is numbers to the mathematician that is Sleep. Moving parts, broken pieces to move around at will, tools. Vessel is a tool for Sleep. Sleep holds his pieces together. If he moves away from Sleep, what’s left? Pieces, fractions, not a human. He will never be able to go back to who he was before Sleep. Without Sleep he’s a pile of jumbled numbers without meaning. Then, because I am in deep deep love with Lovecraftian horror, and I see Sleep as a cosmic horror / eldritch old god type of creature, I also have to mention the mind breaks. In Lovecraft, when a human lays eyes on an Old One, or obtains knowledge of these cosmic deity’s existence, it shatters their minds. It’s something that happens in almost every eldritch creature encounter, or when forbidden knowledge is attained, because the human mind, the brain, is too feeble to understand and contain such knowledge. The human mind doesn’t know what to do when faced with something so unfathomable, so unnamable, so truly profoundly insane, as an eldritch god, so the mind breaks. Shatters. Becomes pieces. Fractions. When Vessel saw Sleep in his dreams the first time, his mind probably broke. Which is partly why he’s so unhinged and feral on some of his lyrics. Human morality and what is “normal” doesn’t have a hold on him anymore. His mind is unchained, yes, but shattered.

Oh, and I am driven to distraction

I especially love the word play in this line, because with the way Vessel accentuates and pronounces “distraction”, it sounds like “destruction” too. Distraction, because Sleep has taken and will take, foreseeably forever, the entirety of Vessel’s brain space. He is distracted from normal life, normal human responsibilities. Distracted from the mundane. Because what could be more important than the deity you’ve dedicated yourself to. Everything pales next to Sleep’s will, his strength, his mission. Vessel’s mission. Of course he’s distracted from everything else. He hasn’t been able to concentrate on “normal” life since Sleep appeared to him. Destruction echoes what I’ve touched on before. Whoever Vessel was before Sleep has been destroyed. There are some parts left, but they’re jumbled and glued together wrong. They’re Other. He was destroyed and rebuilt by Sleep. I just really enjoy how this lines plays on both fronts, a seemingly innocent one, and a much deeper, darked permeation of Sleep in Vessel’s core.

Which finally leads to the she/her pronouns lines: Oh, and I swear she is not like any other, no Something much more than I could ask for (It's too late for me)

That’s Sleep he’s talking about. Like the original ask said about Alkaline. This is about Sleep. Sleep is not like any other. Not like any other god or deity Vessel might have encountered in his human life before. To worship Sleep is unlike anything he’s been taught or potentially forced to worship before, in his youth, etc. Sleep is a whole different breed of god. Of creature. Of living being. And Sleep is too much. Maybe he was too much from the get-go, as I touched upon before with the Lovecraftian mind break theory. Maybe he became too much as Vessel got closer. Maybe he demanded too much and pushed Vessel part his limits. Whatever ways it manifested, it’s clear Sleep is Too Much for a human to handle or comprehend, so for to be chosen by him, to bear his scepter, to wield his words, to lead a now world-wide church in Worship, that has so be so incredibly heavy to bear. No wonder Vessel says it was more than he asked for.

And then the lyrics repeat safe for this one line that differs once: Oh, and I am driven to distraction With each and every interaction (it's too late for me)

Which still hints at the same idea, that every time he interacts with Sleep, he falls further and further in. He becomes less and less human. He breaks a little more every time.

Tl;dr the “she” in this song is so clearly Sleep in my opinion, the walls are lined with religious/cult and devotional references.

[aroaceconfessions]

I can't help feeling bitter about an ex friend from high school turning out to be aspec. He constantly alienated me in our friend-group for being the "token straight," essentially assuming my sexuality and ultimately confusing me for a large part of my adolescence (we were friends from grade 5 onward). It's always been a pet peeve of mine when people look at someone and assume their sexuality with absolutely no context. I never expressed liking men, nor did I ever express liking women. But somehow because I wasn't outwardly queer he had the right to pick on me for supposedly being cishet. I never said anything because I didn't even know what I was and I was struggling with my sexuality for most of high school.

I figured out I was aroace once we stopped being friends, and I saw on his twitter that he identifies as gay and demi-sexual. And I just felt enormously angry about it. He might've been struggling with the same things I was at the time, and rather than talk to me about it (because we were FRIENDS), he shut me out and made fun of me. I wish I could confront him about it, but I don't have the guts.

Anyhow, I met another asexual last year in college and we're living together now having a grand ol' time. But I wish I could go back in time to tell him "fuck you" or something. He was a terrible friend anyways, and I hate that he's still got a chokehold on my brain when he probably doesn't give a shit about me.

Submitted April 8, 2023

[dmercer91]

are any of the other girls bi/queer like landen?

it would be incredibly off brand for me to have a majority of my oc’s be het, SO!

blake’s sexuality is just a big ‘?’ but she notes that she is an avid lover of women (she also is extremely loud about her attraction to jamie and charlie- who openly flirt back. she almost faints every time. dawson can’t tell if he hates it or not)

raegan has about 10 years of shit to unpack emotionally before she clues in that she could possibly like girls (she does eventually conclude that she’s pan when she hits landen w the ‘how did you know you liked girls?’ and lans soul escapes her body)

robin has been in poly relationships but doesn’t really look into it at all or identify with the term (mostly out of fear that she no longer falls under the term for being in a monogamous relationship) (so, technically, she’s ambi)

mason (jamie’s boyfriend) is bisexual. i love him. that man is a no fucks (but simultaneously too many fucks) given crop top wearing extra large defenceman with a preference for people who kind of want to beat him up

rylie identifies as queer (when mackie asks what they entails she’s like …. just go with it baby <3 nd he’s like okay 🥰🥰)

charlie and jamie are both like lol no!! and they tell people who ask that they’re unlabelled (jamie also uses she/they pronouns) (charlie was a social pariah in middle school for her whole vibe she had going and now she’s dating the guy who all the girls who bullied her drool over, she won)

wesley’s pre-wyatt no strings situation was not limited by gender but she thought she was aro before wy, so there that— (still on the aro spectrum, 100%, if her and wyatt were to break up she probably would never seriously date again)

i don’t know if i went in depth but lan is bi with a preference for women (most people assumed she was a lesbian until luca came along. she was like no i swear i like men they’re just so S T U P I D)

draya, cam and dahlia are the token straights (affectionate) (draya and blake have drunkenly made out but that’s as far as she’s explored in terms of bi-curiousness)

[youareallowedchips]

sexuality/gender headcanons about the sherlock gang

18+ (not really nsfw) content under the cut ♡

post author is bi & nonbinary! these are just my own personal hcs that i keep in mind when i write fic, it's 100% fine if you don't agree c:

sherlock holmes

homosexual, grey-aromantic transmasculine.

sherlock, despite public perceptions, has an absolutely average sex drive, but had never really felt romantic attraction in his life until he met john, and he can't imagine falling in love with anyone else. he spent a fair bit of time on hookup apps prior to meeting john. sherlock is KINKY.

he's known he felt more aligned with masculinity since he was very small, but never felt the need to go on hormones or have surgery, because he finds society's expectations of trans people restrictive and doesn't want surgical recovery to slow him down. he binds (sometimes unsafely, much to john's annoyance), and it does wonders for his dysphoria.

john watson

allo, bi cis man.

dating sherlock from the great game until the fall, and after mary's death. john's romantic attraction STRONGLY leans towards women and femmes, but sherlock is The One for him. he had a purely physical relationship with sholto when he was still in the army.

john's sex drive is actually super high.

mycroft holmes

allo, gay cis man

a lot of people assume mycroft is aro/ace, because he never seems to get himself involved with anyone. mycroft is married to his work, in the truest sense of the word, and simply doesn't have time for sex or relationships.

mycroft is in a bonded pair with his right hand.

greg lestrade

allo, straight cis man. (token cishet white man!)

dating molly, unofficially just after aSiB, officially asked her out in tSoT, when they were tipsy at john & mary's wedding. greg is super comfortable with his sexuality/masculinity and he's experimented plenty. before john & sherlock got together, he kissed john in the pub once, just to see if he'd like it. he had a fling with a bloke in police academy when he was young, but decided in the end that dudes weren't for him. he appreciates beauty in all genders, and isn't afraid to point out an aesthetically pleasing man. he's also VERY much an ally, most of his friends (and his girlfriend,, uwu) are queer. he fiercly protects his queer friends and coworkers.

greg is an absolute HORNDOG. filthy filthy filthy. he'd be doin' it every day if it was up to him. he's a pleasure/service dom and

molly hooper

demisexual, bi, cis woman.

dating greg. is pretty much split 50/50 in her attraction, maybe with a slight lean towards men. even though she's shy, her sexuality is one of the few things she's open and proud about.

mary morstan

haven't really thought about it much, but if there was a gun to my head, i'd say shes a bi cis woman?

mary doesn't like to label anything about herself, much less her sexuality. she goes with the flow.

(i don't think about her much bc i don't like her, also amanda abbington is an unspeakable terf)

irene adler

allo, lesbian cis woman.

irene didn't come out until her late 20s, struggled with A LOT of comphet, explaining what she thought was an "attraction" to sherlock. they're seriously just bros now, though.

irene actually couldnt really care less one way or another about how often she has sex, but she knows she's good at it and can use it to make money.

sally donovan

allo, bi trans woman

sally is t4t, and dating anderson. she lives stealth, almost nobody knows other than

philip anderson

allo, straight trans man

dating sally. anderson is quite insecure in his trans identity and used to be truscum, explaining the animosity between him and sherlock. he blamed himself a lot after the fall, and took a long hard look at himself and his politics, helped along by a kick up the arse from sally.

[sapphire-weapon]

Jumping straight to a 1:1 remake of 5 doesn't make sense to me because that game was the big final confrontation with Wesker and most the people who only started playing with the remakes don't really know who he is. Separate Ways ending on a confrontation between him and Ada makes a lot of sense to me. They should use it to set up a more Ada focused game with Wesker continuing to hunt her down. She could manipulate Chris and Jill to get involved to take the heat off her creating an alternate RE5

This was also my thinking. It makes absolutely no sense to go straight to an RE5 remake without at least remaking Code Veronica first. I would probably say that about 30-40% of the people buying these remakes haven't played the originals. There are so many new fans that have been brought in by these games that it's kind of insane. It'd be stupid for them to just go into RE5 and be like "sorry new fans you should've been keeping up with the MYRIAD OF STUPID BULLSHIT this series has been doing for 25 years!!!!!"

But, on the same token, I don't actually see them remaking Code Veronica. I don't see that as a thing that's going to happen, because I don't see them going backwards in time. Or -- if they do remake Code Veronica, they're going to drastically change it, and instead of the game taking place in early 1999, it'll probably take place closer to RE4 -- because the point of remaking Code Veronica at all would specifically be to lead into RE5, so it'd be stupid to retain the 10-year gap between the two stories.

And, in that case, you could probably tie Code Veronica to this whole thing -- assuming that Ada actually gets away from Wesker somehow. After all, it never really got explained how Claire got the information she did in order to go to Paris at all, much less how she was able to get into an active fucking Umbrella facility. And, considering the fact that RE4make did not at all say that Umbrella was finished the same way OG did, chances are that Umbrella is actually still around, and they could very well make a change like that to CV. (Okay, well, I know Luis says "Umbrella's done for; you don't have to worry about them anymore" but boy does he not sound confident at all when he says that. Will be interesting to see if he's aware that Wesker was the one who sent Ada to retrieve the Amber, and if that has anything to do with Luis's change of heart.)

If Capcom was smart, they'd flesh out Lost in Nightmares and turn it into its own game. And that's something that Ada can be slotted into pretty easily if/when she gets caught by Wesker at the end of Separate Ways. She could be the prototype for what Jill eventually becomes in RE5, instead of that shit just kind of... coming out of nowhere and everyone being like "okay that's a thing, I guess." oh my god imagine an infected Ada hunting you down in a game Lisa Trevor style I'D SHIT MY WHOLE FUCKING ASS, BRO

But this is all just spitballing and speculation. We won't have any idea what to expect until Separate Ways actually comes out and we see what Capcom actually did with it.

I'm gonna put money down that we're going to see Separate Ways at the Playstation Showcase on Wednesday. So, let's see what happens then!

[georgieluz]

6, 10 and 13! 💚

hiiiii 💚

i answered 6 over here just a second ago, but i haven't done 10 or 13 yet so let me do those

10. worst part of fanon

i generally enjoy most parts of fanon but there are a few things that i sometimes don't particularly agree with, or see, myself? harry welsh being constantly described as the token straight is one of them. i know that most of the time this is a lighthearted joke/meme type of thing, but i do think the fandom actually thinks it too. i mostly find this kinda weird bc the only reason people give is that he talks about his wife a lot and is super super into her. bi and pan men can also love their wives to that degree and be "dedicated wife men". it just feels kinda exclusionary that people just naturally assume that a man who loves his wife in a wholesome way can't be bi or pan. especially bc it never applies to any of the other easy men who canonically had wives. and honestly, take it from me, an actual queer man: in comparison to most of the men in easy company, harry actually has queer vibes in abundance. he's definitely not giving cishet man the way people headcanon him. it's not really that deep, but yeah, i will 100% die on this hill. harry welsh is pan and kitty grogan is bi!! harry just doesn't feel like he'd give a fuck about the gender of the person he's into. i feel like he just wouldn't think about it in that kinda way, he'd be like "well, i'm into this person and that's that" and would just be down bad for them regardless of what they identify as.

so yeah, fuck the token straight harry headcanons!! if anything, [redacted] is actually the token straight :)

13. worst blorbofication

ok this is actually a bit of a tough one bc blorbofication is different to uwufication in my mind. like it's a whole separate thing to me. uwufication is more about taking away all the sharp messy edges of a character, whereas blorbofication is more about "oh this character lives in my chest now. i live and breathe their essence" kinda thing. so i don't think blorbofying characters is necessarily something i would see as having a 'worst', especially in our fandom, where side characters with little screen time are often fan favourites. in fact, i'd encourage the blorbofication of all hbo war characters!!! uwuifying some of them in writing does really put me off a fic or headcanon though, especially if it's very ooc. i don't mean the fics where you go deeper into their emotions and explore their inner feelings, or where there is a gradual evolution of their character, that's just good writing, but the ones where all their rough traits and flaws are filed down and polished away, just so the author can write the perfect little fluff fic with innocent flaw-free canvases instead of characters. people do it with speirton all the time, less so with webgott but you do still see it. i'd say winnix fall somewhere in the middle, but closer to speirton than webgott, on the scale. messy winnix is actually way way way more interesting than the flat boring married side couple that most fics position them as. i've gone off-track but still!

for the choose violence ask game!

[salsa-and-light]

“A note to my followers: I am 100% aware that arguing with this person will go absolutely nowhere. Please do not waste any significant amount of your time.”

I don't think that you realize how close-minded(read: cultish) it makes you sound when you assume that a person with criticism is some boorish idiot and when you discourage people from engaging with people you don't agree with.

I think you've forgotten that I'm a person, not some caricaturistic symbol of an ever-present evil.

I spent most of yesterday in the church choir and then volunteering for a local theater troupe while wearing reindeer antlers.

Most days I'm just a fun friendly jester, the fact that I'm criticizing you is because this is an important issue.

Being flippant does not reflect well on you.

“I’m going to address a couple points here and then leave well enough alone after that. “

Except you didn’t.

You put a bunch of block quotes of tangential relevance and just expected that your personal interpretation would suddenly appear to me.

Which shows that you either lack either the critical ability or the empathy to imagine other perspectives; which virtually guarantees that you are also unaware of your potential biases.

Hence why we are speaking in the first place.

“You promote a false gospel - one that says grace means sin doesn’t matter (or specifically sexual sins that you approve of…”

So close and yet you miss the mark.

Not once did I ever say that grace validates sin.

I very specifically criticized your personal interpretation of what sin is, which seems to include whatever sexual acts you personally *don’t* approve of.

“- I bet there’s a lot of things you would still consider worthy of condemnation.)”

Yeah- obviously.

That should have been your first hint that I am not being dismissive of sin as a concept.

But it’s very telling that you consider a rejection of your personal moral vision to be a rejection of morality itself.

And by telling, I do mean arrogant. It doesn't reflect well on you.

“Whether that sin is lust…”

Lust still isn’t a sin, nor have to supported your opinion.

I’m fairly certain that you consider Matthew 5 to be support of that idea, which it isn't.

I might be able to explain why we're having this difference of opinion if you were able to articulate how you came to yours.

But you didn't articulate it, which makes me suspect that you don't know how you came to that conclusion and that you're just repeating a first impression or the conclusion of someone else.

“The Gospel doesn’t say our sin is no longer sin. It says our sin is paid for.”

Yes I know. That was a part of my point in fact.

So do you care to explain why you think that Queer people are committing some unique sin that leaves them “essentially about to jump off a spiritual cliff”?

Because I’m struggling to see this as anything other than a declaration that you think that homosexuality is some unique sin that puts Queer people in a particular spiritual danger and that indeed that their sins are not “paid for”.

“When we tell “queer” Christians”

You know..

I’m not unaware that I can be a cutting writer, it’s most often intentional, because I believe that if you aspire to cast judgment onto the lives of millions of people you don’t know, then you should be tough enough that I don’t need to handle you with kiddie gloves.

And by that same token I do notice when little linguistic ticks start to imply derision.

I understand that you’re having big feeling about being criticized and that can be very difficult, but you chose to wade into this issue, you don’t get to get complain that the water is cold when you jumped into the deep end.

“When we tell “queer” Christians (or straight Christians for that matter) that they are sinning when they have sex outside a heterosexual marriage…”

…you’re repeating unbiblical folk belief.

That’s what you’re doing when you do that.

No passage of scripture says that.

“we are not saying that God’s grace is insufficient for them. We’re saying God’s grace is big enough to cover every sin, including sexual sins.”

Sure, yeah that definitely an indirect implication.. but the explicit statement is that certain conditions(i.e. marital status & gender) make sex sinful.

..which is a problem -because these claims are unsubstantiated.

They’re opinion, they’re folk tradition.

I find it strange that you’re trying to broaden the scope of this idea to something vague and unobjectionable; -because I wasn't criticizing the Gospel, I was specifically criticizing your moral claims about the nature of sex and lust.

It gives the distinct impression that you’re trying to doge the question of where you got this idea in the first place.

“But if someone clings to their sin and doesn’t want it forgiven, then God will not forgive it.”

Well that’s very interesting theological presumption.

I won’t bother disputing it, but I will say this:

If God’s grace is dependent on us having a perfectly accurate moral understanding of all of our personal sins for which we must repent individually or in category.. then all of this is moot because none of us are capable of doing that and we are all therefore beyond the bounds of grace.

So I very much doubt that you actually believe that.

What I suspect is that Queerness as a subject is so uncomfortable for you that you can not conceive of it in the same category as your own sins so you have to make a new category which justifies your campaigns against it.

It's un understandable course of action, but it is not a moral one.

I'm still going through your whole blog, so I may find an answer, but why is queer attraction so bad? Lust is lust, and in my opinion, if it's a sin when it's two ladies, it's a sin if it's a lady and a dude. Then again, the Catholic side of my family has been nothing but supportive regarding my queer identity, and I'm not gay as much as I am asexual. Just a query.

I don’t see anything wrong with asexuality. The Bible never says there’s anything wrong with not wanting to have sex. In fact, the Apostle Paul calls it a blessing (although he notes in that passage that he’s speaking on his own, not from God).

You’re right that lust is always bad. God created sexuality for specific purposes, and He designed it to be used in the marital union between one man and one woman. Anything outside of that marital union is not good. That includes sex outside of marriage and homosexual relationships.

The only reason why Christians focus so much on homosexuality is because we see people tying this particular sin into their identity, which is a fatal error. We focus on it out of concern for those who are essentially about to jump off a spiritual cliff.

[confoundedluna]

brain is going brrrrrrr so time for until dawn headcanons I think, some of these are probably very self indulgent but that's what headcanons are for babey let's go

Josh: Gay and cisgender, he/him, mans definitely has some comphet, he overcompensates like Hell - the way he talks about Ashley to Chris and about Jess when he's antagonising Mike in the shed?

Chris: Bisexual and cisgender, he/him, polyamorous too, everybody jokingly treats him like 'no bitches?' because he's the nerdy guy but he definitely got Josh and Ash, and probably others if he wanted

Mike: Heterosexual and cisgender, he/him, I think he was bicurious and did some experimenting but ultimately he's straight and happy to joke about it

Matt: Heterosexual and cisgender, he/him, but he'd probably be unofficially chill with they/them

Sam: Bisexual and cisgender, she/her, also unofficially cool with they/them, moreso than Matt but not to the extent that she identifies as a different gender identity

Emily: Heterosexual and cisgender, she/her, you can't tell me that when they were friends she and Jess didn't experiment though

Ashley: Panromantic asexual demigirl, she/they, she's the kind that's gone through so many identities that at this point she's like 'yeah whatever she/they, panromantic, whatever word you think best fits me, i'm just existing'

Jess: Bisexual and cisgender, she/her, has a heavy male preference and doesn't really talk about any experimenting she did so most people just assume she's straight kinda thing

Hannah: Heterosexual and cisgender, she/her, hasn't experimented or anything, just confident in her identity, she's the token straight in that sense

Beth: Lesbian enby, still uses she/they but like. for convenience, y'know?, i'm in the camp of Sam x Beth over Sam x Hannah, sue me, I think they'd be cute together

(before anyone gets mad at these i'm a she/they asexual lesbian myself and this is all for fun)

(also apologies for the until dawn spam recently, the quarry has revived my love for it and so I have made it everyone's problem)

[blockgamepirate]

Technoblade’s purpose in the political narrative of the Dream SMP

I can’t sleep so I decided to finally write the post I’ve been struggling with for literal months, except way more casual because I can’t be bothered anymore and also I’m sleep deprived.

So the thing is: to me the DSMP storyline has always been primarily political, probably because I was introduced to it through Wilbur who was definitely going for political, and also because I’m just generally interested in political narratives right now. Obviously I appreciate the character work and the personal relationship stuff, that’s what makes it more interesting than just dry allegory, but when it comes down to it, this story is about politics to me. So that’s the angle I’m going to approach it from.

Also not to spoil the conclusions here, but I’m an anarchist, that’s my lens.

(Obviously all of this is about rp from here on out unless otherwise specified)

Basically the situation as Techno joins the server is this: L'Manburg exists as an autonomous nation and is de facto independent although not officially recognised by the Dream SMP. The self-appointed president Wilbur Soot decides to hold an election and rig it in order to consolidate his power over the nation he founded and he gets his VP Tommyinnit to join in on the plan. Their scheme fails and they end up voted out instead. The new president, Schlatt, immediately establishes himself as an authoritarian figure and exiles Wilbur and Tommy.

A couple of points on what the election arc demonstrates:

1: the appearance of democracy can be used for distinctly undemocratic purposes.

2: even if the elections aren’t rigged, the electoral system could be massively flawed and end up favouring a party that in fact didn’t have the popular vote

3: even if the winning government (the coalition in this case) has the majority vote, that doesn’t guarantee that they’ll actually act according to the popular will.

4: the supporters of the losing parties basically just have to let the majority overrule their wishes, espcially since apparently L’Manburg doesn’t have an established role for an opposition, yikes. That’s actually a MAJOR oversight in the system but I’m not gonna go into that too much.

5: frankly as an anarchist I am just deeply cynical towards representative democracy, and just because you have a token appearance of choice and consent doesn’t mean that it isn’t a hierarchical and authoritarian system. And to be fair, from my point of view this applies even to so-called liberal democracies and progressive parties. Full disclosure: even if L'Manburg was the ideal example of a representative democracy (which it very much isn’t) I would still be opposed to it because I fundamentally do not believe in top down systems, even electoral ones.

6: despite all these flaws, all the characters seem to implicitly accept the electoral system as legitimate. There’s criticism against the actions of individual characters acting within the system, such as Quackity calling out Wilbur for trying to rig the election, but nobody is questioning the system itself.

So at this point I’m sitting there, watching all this go down, and thinking “man, this would be so much more bearable if there was an anarchist point of view being represented in the story.”

And hey, look who IMMEDIATELY SHOWS UP.

Okay, I’m not gonna lie, early installation Technoblade is not the best representation of anarchism. I was mostly rooting for him out of sheer contrarianism initially. I didn’t really even care if it would be another Killmonger/Magneto/Zaheer situation because I’m used to reading against the authorial intent when it comes to these things. Sometimes any representation is better than no representation, even with political ideologies. That’s not to say that him just straight up spouting this hobbesian notion of a “dog-eat-dog world” didn’t grate on me, obviously it did.

That kind of worldview of humanity needing authority in order to prevent chaos and conflict is literally antithetical to anarchism and is the favourite talking point of authoritarians, the least anarchist people there are. It’s literally what people use to argue AGAINST anarchism. I think it’s mostly because cc!Techno obviously wasn’t particularly educated on anarchist thought and was just basically having fun roleplaying with his friends at this point. Which is frustrating but fair enough I guess.

Cynical ideas about human nature are pretty deeply rooted in the mainstream, unfortunately, most people just consider it common sense. And like I said, it’s a huge talking point in the propaganda against anarchism.

(… even though in fact these arguments were originally used against proponents of representative democracy. Hobbes himself was very much a monarchist, the idea of letting normal people vote for their representatives would have been terrifying to him. Like surely the world would descent into a free-for-all war, all against all. Imagine letting commoners have OPINIONS, the horror.)

So yeah, that stuff was pretty ehhhhh. It was basically what I’d expected though: cc!Techno isn’t an anarchist and we just don’t get accurate representation from non-anarchists, ever. What I dared to hope was that Techno’s character would at least stay consistent about his opposition to ALL governments. I was pretty sure that he would, even though it seemed like the majority of the fandom at the time was convinced that he would switch over to Schlatt’s side or something. It would have been a really shitty twist, I would have ragequit immediately. I mean what would have been the entire point of his character then? He might as well have been a random mercenary. Why even have his character be an anarchist if you were just going to make him work for a government?

(ftr this is kinda my biggest problem with the Hypixel Skyblock revolution event lol, honestly I think that was a worse depiction of anarchism than early DSMP Technoblade. I mean the speech was good, but… still became a government official, tho. booooooooo, cringe)

And yes, I was rooting against L'Manburg, obviously, and I would have even if it had meant having to deal with another badly written anarchist villain character. I never understood why people saw L'Manburg as the good guys, they were nationalist and exclusionary and their whole existence was based on trying to scam people for money.

I mean they were definitely funny, they were great entertainers. I have no problems with people rooting for them because they’re fun to watch; I did that for a bit too. But people were starting to get really into the story and talk about Wilbur and Tommy, the corrupt politicians, and the country that literally excluded people based on nationality as the heroes, unironically, which was wild to me. And when Wilbur started his “villain arc” well: people called it a villain arc, as if he hadn’t been pretty much a bad guy from the beginning, constantly just out for money and power and taking advantage of the people around him and then pretending to be the victim when challenged. I mean yes he got worse, but I wouldn’t call it a villain arc, more like just a mental breakdown arc.

More importantly, to me L'Manburg represented so many things I hate about the status quo in real life, and seeing the fandom mostly unquestioningly accept it as good just pissed me off. Still pisses me off tbh. I mean, to be diplomatic I could say that I understand the emotional attachment and the way L'Manburg was built up mirrors a lot of how real nations are built and how they create a sense of patriotism out of symbols and a sense of honour and loyalty, and it’s actually really fascinating how it even works in a Minecraft roleplay. Says something about the human mind I guess. Doesn’t mean I have to like it though.

Anyway, I just wanted to see literally any kind of opposition to power, even if it had to come from a character that was unquestionably a villain, which I fully assumed Techno would be. Because political narratives so often just leave us out, or at best barely mention us. And even from a narrative point of view, adding an anarchist perspective to a political story just objectively broadens its scope and actually challenges people who are used to only arguing along the lines of conservative or liberal, welfare state or privatization, nationalism or multiculturalism, etc. Even if the original work dealt with it poorly, at least it would give me the excuse to rant about it on Tumblr, which is kinda why I revived my old Minecraft sideblog for this. (That and pig!Techno fanart.)

Also how can you have a story so fundamentally about power without its counterpoint: the rejection of power?

(Yes, Dream SMP as a whole is definitely a narrative about power, it’s a huge theme for Wilbur, Quackity, Dream, Eret and the Badlanders at least, as well as obviously the anarchist characters from the opposite direction.)

So yeah, the build up to November 16th for me was mainly about the anticipation for what Techno would do, how would Techno’s character respond to the seemingly inevitable formation of a new government. THAT was the point of interest for me, that was what I was the most invested in. Would we get an actual anarchist opposition as a new side to the conflict or would they just awkwardly drop that whole angle? Or even have him team up with Schlatt like a complete sellout? There was so much potential but I worried they might just waste it.

And I was right to worry since apparently in the original script Techno wasn’t supposed to do anything, he was just there to help fight Schlatt and witness the explosion along with everyone else.

And WOW that would have been so incredibly boring

Not even just from the political perspective, just talking about the narrative in general terms here: imagine November 16th without Techno’s plot points. Not only would it have been boring for Techno’s character but it would have been equally boring for basically everybody but Wilbur and Philza. An anticlimactic fight followed by a big explosion that pretty much everybody had seen coming already. Yes, the button room scene is dramatic and heartbreaking… for Wilbur and Phil. But nobody else was there to see it. For everybody else, it was just a big explosion. It would have been such a huge disservice to anyone watching the other POVs.

Techno’s intervention gave everyone an ACTUAL climactic fight, it allowed characters other than Wil and Phil to witness some actual drama happening and to participate in it, rather than just waiting around for the explosion, while also foreshadowing the explosion. Even better, it provoked SO MUCH discussion in the fandom AND gave a perfect hook for future conflicts to arise. Wilbur’s end was tragic but it was, at the time, final. L'Manburg would have still suffered a catastrophe but it would have been left with just the same exact antagonist as before: Dream.

And at this point Dream’s core goals had barely changed, just his approach was now different. Yes, that makes a difference for the plot, but it doesn’t really change much in terms of ideological conflict. Especially since there really isn’t that big of an ideological difference between Dream and Tommy, because arguably neither of them are particularly big on ideology in the first place, they just have conflicting goals and use different tactics to achieve those goals (well, the tactics aren’t always even that different *cough Spirit cough*).

Techno’s conflict with Tubbo and especially Quackity (and honestly most of the other characters in general) brings in so much more depth to the story, just by introducing another angle, not to even mention how much it brings to focus questions about power and violence. These are themes that exist in other characters’s storylines too but nowhere in the same way or as central as with Techno.

I’m getting kind of ahead of myself here, though.

The real twist of November 16th was the fact that Techno WASN’T a straight up villain, actually. It was a twist to me anyway, because with all my cynicism I just didn’t see it coming, I didn’t expect him to actually start making reasonable criticisms. I didn’t expect him to drop the hobbesian arguments entirely and start making points that actually sounded like anarchism.

I have to assume that cc!Techno must have seen some of the criticisms of his character and been inspired to adjust because the difference is pretty notable.

(Sidenote: I’m just forever kinda sad that Techno’s “I may seem like the villain here” monologue was cut from the video and most people never heard it.)

And I felt SO validated by the way, because it works so well in the story! Everyone is mostly content with the restoration of a status quo of some sort, Schlatt is gone, this is supposed to be the good ending, and then Techno calls them all out and turns the narrative around completely: This was just a coup d'état. This was just the previous political leadership retaking power by force. Why is everyone celebrating the same exact system that lead to Schlatt’s authoritarian rule in the first place?

What he does there is force the audience to question the narrative they’ve been presented so far, that they’ve accepted without a thought. It might not convince them, but they can’t just ignore it either.

Whatever you wanna say about the discourse around Techno on that day, in the ideological narrative THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART. Not who betrayed who or when is political violence justified, that’s about personal relationships and morality and it’s mostly all more relevant to the aftermath than the event itself. In my opinion, the REAL point in the moment is that the characters and the audience were comfortable with the ending only to be presented with a completely new perspective on the events.

It also recontextualises the finale, including Wilbur’s actions! It’s a much more ambiguous end to the Pogtopia vs Manburg arc and to Wilbur’s original run as the head writer. Wilbur’s “even with Tubbo in charge I don’t think [that ‘special place’] can exist again” is vague enough to be dismissed as just part of his paranoia and internal conflict, but with Techno, there’s a concrete question: what if Tubbo, given the same powers as Schlatt, will turn out to be just a new Schlatt? And suddenly you have to wonder what Wilbur meant by his words too. And was all this foreshadowing something about L’Manburg’s future?

Okay I’ve only made it to November 16th and there’s so much more DSMP to talk about but the post is getting too long and I’m starting to lose my energy. Will I ever make a part two? No idea. But I’ll try.

Standard disclaimer: I’m not the spokesperson of anarchism, other anarchists might disagree with my reading