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songoftrillium · 2 years ago

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Werewolf: the Apocalypse 5th Edition and the Anti-Indigeneity in the Gaming Industry

reosted with permission from J.F. Sambrano

Dagot’ee!

Shii J.F. Sambrano gonsēē. My nations are Chiricahua Apache (Ndeh) through my maternal grandmother and Cora Indian (Náayarite) through my maternal grandfather. I am a mixed race Indigenous person, and through my father my heritage is English and Scottish. I am currently residing and doing work in my community on the lands of Lummi Nation. I use both gender non-binary and masculine pronouns, but prefer the former. I have several published works in the TTRPG industry, and am probably most known for my contributions to Mage: the Ascension 20th Edition, Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Edition, and the Transformers Roleplaying Game, as well as being part of the Essence 20 development team. Further, I also work in higher education at an Indian college, both advising and teaching Indigenous students across the United States. My passion is education, and I believe that we all learn through play, and that TTRPGs are a valuable source of learning, especially on personal, cultural, and social levels. This has always been what has drawn me to TTRPGs since I started playing M.E.R.P. with my brother in 1996 (and before that HeroQuest), through to my “graduation” into more story-driven games such as those presented in the Storyteller System, until now, where I author and produce my own roleplaying games.

I was also part of the First Team (in-joke intentional) hired by White Wolf Studios/Paradox Interactive via Hunters Entertainment to develop and author Werewolf: the Apocalypse 5th Edition. After several months of work, Paradox Interactive chose to go in another direction in early 2021 (I believe it was either March or April) and in fall of that year, it was announced that Werewolf would instead be taken in house, with Justin Achilli as the Brand Creative Lead and primary author of the book. Going forward I will be describing my experience while I worked with Paradox Interactive, primarily through Karim Muammar, White Wolf’s Brand Editor, as well as the developmental editor for Werewolf. Although I worked in a team, both with hired authors and in-house representatives at Hunters Entertainment, I will not be speaking for the experience of others, except when specifically noting unanimous consensuses, and specific interactions (which will go unnamed) that are particularly relevant. My hope is that by highlighting some of the anti-Indigenous attitudes that are central to the foundational members and leaders of the White Wolf brand, that I can provide opportunities for growth and healing within the World of Darkness TTRPG community, but also in the broader gaming community, where these behaviors and attitudes are rampant. I also want the community to have a better understanding of what this experience is like internally, and the challenges that Indigenous creators, as well as other marginalized creators, are met with when they try to make positive change within nerd and geek communities clinging to inherited white supremacist values, even if they don’t realize they are doing so.

What I do not want to be doing in this article is creating fuel for edition wars. I believe that both legacy and Werewolf 5th are rife with anti-Indigenous attitudes, and appalling amounts of appropriation. Both versions deserve criticism, I am not defending one over the other, I am only sharing what my experience was like working on the 5th edition of the book. Further, please understand that I was originally going to wait until I had read the final copy of the book, because I wanted to know how much of my work was used (based on previews I already know some was, just not the extent) and whether or not they decided to credit me for that work, and how I was going to be credited. My belief is that I likely will not be, but I am genuinely uncertain. Knowing how they handled that would have reframed how I addressed this. But more importantly, I want it to be very clear that even before Paradox ultimately pulled the plug on the Hunters team, I was preparing to exit working on the project based on the experience I will describe below. Not only did I find it frustrating, and personally disparaging, but I ultimately decided I was uncomfortable with my name being attached to the product based on the direction they wanted to go. So while I wanted to know whether or not I would be credited, because it would teach me something about their internal practices, I do not want or need the credit.

Finally, the reason that I decided to speak about this now instead of after having a chance to inspect the final product, was because my personal experience dealing with anti-Indigeneity coming from Paradox was just that: personal. But since then I have witnessed a throughline of hateful and xenophobic attitudes wielded against Indigenous people across the globe, and we do not deserve this treatment. I was outraged over the events that led to the segregation of the Latin American fanbase, which culminated from bottom-up criticism about how poorly their people and countries were being defined through World of Darkness products, and ended up with the firing of their Latin American Brand Ambassador, Alessa Torres, because she chose to stand with her community in those criticisms. I was further appalled when the likeness of Tāme Wairere Iti was shoehorned into the Werewolf book, a blatant example of cultural theft: not only in stealing the literal physical identity of an Indigenous person, but also his sacred tā moko. When Paradox Interactive issued an apology for this, it felt incredibly hollow to me in the wake of these events, the hateful attitudes I had personally witnessed coming from the top.

Whether from North America, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, or Peru, or across the globe in New Zealand, not only do Indigenous people deserve better treatment from such a major company, but their Indigenous and Latino fanbases, who have twisted and worked themselves through difficult representation for decades at this point, deserve better. Apologies are not enough, especially when they come with next to no real change.

Werewolf: the Apocalypse in Context

At the time that White Wolf Publishing began to produce its World of Darkness line, the TTRPG industry was dominated by white men, both as producers, developers, and authors, as well as the main characters in their settings. White Wolf's World of Darkness made an impact at the time, by defying these Eurocentric, patriarchal presentations, first by defaulting to feminine pronouns throughout Vampire: the Masquerade, and then by focusing on Indigenous representation and values in Werewolf: the Apocalypse, and as a young Indigenous nerd, it had a positive impact on me, as I know it has on some other Indigenous people who became fans of the World of Darkness at the time. This was because before opening the pages of Werewolf: the Apocalypse, I had never seen heroes that I could play who looked like me and my culture. It was off, and often offensive, but it was my first experience in which I could directly play a hero who shared my heritage--and I also had more than one option through two different Tribes to do so. This might sound a little like I was cheering for table scraps, but again, at the time, table scraps was more than I had ever seen before.

Werewolf: the Apocalypse 1st Edition was originally published in 1992 via then White Wolf Publishing (not to be confused with Paradox Interactive's White Wolf). From its inception, the premise was interwoven with what its then-authors believed to be Indigenous praxis and representation. Like many pop-culture presentations of Indigeneity from this time period (see Fern Gully, Dances With Wolves, Disney’s Pocahontas, or in TTRPGs, the NAN from Shadowrun) it was rife with problematic and even offensive stereotyping. The most obvious examples thereof are within the two "Pure Tribes" Uktena, and W****** who I will henceforth refer to as Older and Younger Brother. However, Indigenous inspiration was at the core of the game's spiritual premise as well, where animism and "Totems" are central to the setting and gameplay. The way these concepts are presented is trivializing and dehumanizing, but it is important to acknowledge that the appropriation present in Werewolf: the Apocalypse goes a lot deeper than the two Brother Tribes (even the term "Tribe" was meant to invoke a vision of Indigeneity compared to the previous setting in the line's use of "Clan"). Additionally, there is art throughout every generation of these gaming books that represents humans, wolves, and human-wolf hybrid forms wearing Indigenous regalia, including sacred items such as headdresses, or engaged in sacred rituals such as the Sun Dance. The list of problematic representations goes deep, and my examples only scratch the surface, but it is also important for me to note the positive impact that this had, particularly in the 90's.

Even though the primary contributors to these narratives were non-Indigenous authors, or in one case, a Pretendian, and another, a culturally disconnected author, by the time the Revised (or Third Edition) era of the books came around, White Wolf Publishing was actively engaged in cultural consultation. While I do not believe cultural consultation makes a big difference on its own, it matters that the attempt was made, to a degree: while these efforts fall short of what needs to be seen in cultural representation, this was still ahead of most other gaming companies at this time.

Hired by Hunters Entertainment

In February of 2020 I was approached by one of the co-owners of Hunters Entertainment to be one of the primary authors for Werewolf: 5th Edition due to my work on other World of Darkness projects, and let's be honest, because I was capable of bringing a much needed Indigenous perspective to a gameline that was rooted in Indigeneity and rotting with appropriation and racist stereotypes. I was overall receptive to the invitation, largely because I was very passionate about the World of Darkness setting overall, and Werewolf in particular, due to the impact that 90's representation had on me when I was a younger gamer. I also felt hopeful that with a really hard rewrite of Indigenous aspects of the game that I could shift a lot of really painful aspects of the game into something that was a net positive for Indigenous representation. I will tell you now, more than anything, I was excited to rewrite the Younger Brother Tribe, because when separated from racist authors, their message is very empowering and real to my lived experience.

That said, I did not agree to join the project without first asking for reassurances. I said that I was not willing to write negative Native stereotypes. I would not use appropriative language, or generally engage in appropriative writing (which meant at minimum that the names of the Pure Tribes would need to change), and most importantly, that I would not not engage in writing that contributed to erasure. While the person who recruited me to work on the project was eager to work with me, he acknowledged that he was not sure he could get everything I wanted to see approved, but also promised to fight for everything I suggested as hard as he could. Additionally, he shared with me that the original setting pitch for W5 involved all of Younger Brother being slaughtered en masse in a massacre. I made it clear that this was exactly the kind of thing that I would not write. I cannot remember if this was something he suggested to be changed before or after I was invited onto the project, but with some pushback it was changed. However, I point this out because I want you, the reader, to understand how eager Paradox Interactive was to start with mass genocide and erasure as a foundation to the setting. All that said, I cannot stress enough that I have had nothing but positive experiences with Hunters Entertainment, and none of the following concerns fall upon them.

The Sword of Heimdall

The first encounter the Hunters Entertainment team as a whole had with problematic guidelines for the W5 draft was the direction that Paradox Interactive wanted to go with the Sword of Heimdall. At the time, the suggestions from Paradox and Karim Muammar were that the Sword of Heimdall was going to represent the new major villain of the Werewolf setting, and that they were to also represent the far-right, fascist direction that Werewolf society so often turned toward. They were meant to be representative of how far the new concept of Hauglosk could take entire communities. However, the Sword of Heimdall was discussed interchangeably with the Get of Fenris as a whole, and more than once Muammar seemed to suggest that every member of this Tribe was guilty of the same attitudes espoused in previous editions from the Sword of Heimdall. Now let's not beat around the bush: the Sword of Heimdall are literal Nazis. They believe directly in white supremacy and don't shy from it. They wanted to cleanse impure elements from the Get of Fenris, including BIPOC people, other non-white ethnicities, women, neurodivergent Garou, and other disabled Garou.

The writing team found this approach problematic for several reasons. The first, and most obvious, was that the direction seemed to want to turn one of the most popular Tribes into a horrific stereotype of its most abhorrent faction. Whether or not Muammar’s goal was to turn them into villains, we could not imagine a world where fans of previous editions would get their hands on this book, and not look for a way to play one of their previous favorite groups, thus creating the issue of making a guide to playing Nazi. Even beyond that, it’s not as if historically there were not players who used the tools of the setting to play Black Spiral Dancers, why wouldn’t this draw people who actually wanted to role-play through these toxic, harmful politics? Further, and while this is less important, it left a bad taste in my mouth, the justification for this major shift in Werewolf lore seemed to change over each pass. At first, Muammar suggested that all Fenrir were Nazis/SoH. Then, when he was provided with evidence that it was a small faction that was eliminated in the early 2000’s, he started to shift toward the idea that we should not follow the lore. Finally, when every single member of the writer’s team flatly refused to provide what would essentially be “a player’s guide to being a Nazi werewolf” the writing was on the wall about the end of our involvement with this product. More than once, he suggested that we were cowardly social justice warriors for being unwilling to work with this concept, even though there were several attempts to write a heroic version of the Fenrir that were focused on undoing these ills of the past.

Indigenous Erasure in Werewolf: 5th Edition

While the entire Hunters Entertainment writing team was handling the major, glaring issue of Paradox’s fervor to include a major Nazi element in Werewolf, I was personally dealing with the problematic approach to the Indigenous issues in the setting. The largest problem, for me, was in addressing Younger Brother’s issues, the history of non-Indigenous writers creating horrifically racist stereotypes, and what was valuable in the Tribal identity that should be saved and recentered. However, my attempts to do so were thwarted with every approach. I rewrote this Tribe four times, and offered three different versions of it to try to earn approval for a final write-up, but each time there was a lot of negativity directed towards my attempts and all them boiled down to this: Muammar felt that having two Tribes (both Younger and Older Brother) representing the “Indigenous population” was too many, and wanted them to only be focused on Older Brother, and that Younger Brother’s connection to a central, Indigenous identity, was undesirable because “other sources wrote them as having Siberian and European connections” and that future writing on this Tribe would require a lot of sensitivity…suggesting that one, Muammar wasn’t interested in doing the work to handle that level of sensitivity, and further, that he wasn’t interested in including me in future work, since I was involved with doing that at the time.

I want to take a moment to remind you that the work that was put into recovering Younger Brother started with “Let’s Kill Them Off” and at this point, through a combination of convincing and pleading, had been walked back to “They can live, but now they’re not connected to being Indigenous anymore” which is just representative genocide of a different variety. “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” It was also explicitly something I said I would not write about going into this project. Ultimately, my efforts did not get much further than this, with some specific exceptions I will cite below.

Karim Muammar’s Anti-Indigenous Positions

Muammar consistently and repeatedly communicated to the team in ways that were condescending and dismissive of our collective accomplishments and capabilities, but from my perspective, no one suffered as much significant derision as I did while discussing the changes I wanted to make to Younger and Older Brother in order to make their representation empowering and exciting.

In the pulled quote from the previous paragraph, I want to point out to you that Muammar, who had the title of Lead Editor on this project, refused to capitalize Native American. Further, he would often redline my work with edits to decapitalize my own uses of Native American, as well as the word Indigenous when referring to Indigenous peoples. While there are plenty of people who might want to argue about this, I will point out that both the AP style guide as well as the Chicago style guide (the one which I am most familiar with in my academic historical work) both call for Indigenous to be capitalized when referring to a people. Further, I challenge anyone to defend the consistent decapitalization of Native American. More importantly, the reason that these are standards in respected style guides, is because the English language has been used historically to oppress and erase ethnic identities, including Indigenous identities. By transforming adjectives into proper nouns, we are declaring that Indigenous and Native aren’t descriptors that can be applied to animals, plants, and soil, but real lived identities and culture groups.

When I was explaining to the Paradox team (which was mostly just Muammar) why it was important to change the names of these two Tribes from the appropriative (and offensive) ones used in the past, Muammar pushed back by defending the previously used Younger Brother name, even after reading my extensive research and explanation about how this would harm Indigenous communities and fans.

While doing so, he also decided that it was appropriate to refer to this entirely Native American tribe by the word “savages” a slur that has been specifically used to dehumanize Native Americans, and then mocked my rewrite that focused on presenting them as stewards of the land using Indigenous methodologies and praxes, instead of the “savage” racist stereotypes they were presented as in previous editions. Further, as in the above quote, even after it was communicated that the use of this term was problematic, he kept doubling-down to use it to refer to the Tribe.

Even though I worked hard to redefine Younger Brother through Indigenous theory, such as place-based theory, relational theory, and communal theory, Muammar either refused to recognize this work, dismissing it as simple, or else simply could not understand the importance of these changes. Either way, the choice is that he didn’t want them to change, or couldn’t comprehend why the change was important because of how entrenched in white supremacist thinking he is. Further, after the massive effort that I put forward to attempt to educate him and the rest of the Paradox team on these issues, the insistence on using offensive terms and belittling my work felt intentional. So let’s talk about the work I did that was above and beyond my job description: free cultural consulting work.

“Sensitivity” and Consultation

I have seen several misunderstandings of my role working on this project going around, so I want to make something very clear. I was hired to work on this project as an author, and nothing else. I was not ever hired to be a cultural consultant. I do not do cultural consulting work. While I feel that there are many creators and companies who hire cultural consultants with the best intentions in mind, their responses often fall short of what is needed, as no one is ever obligated to actually follow the advice of cultural consultants. Further, I think there are also many companies who choose to hire cultural consultants only to say “we did this minimal step, and that is enough” in order to ward off naysayers.

However, anyone who hires me gets some level of cultural consulting for free, because it comes out in my writing–in both what I won’t write and what I choose to center my writing around. In the case of Werewolf 5th Edition, however, it was far more involved than this. I came with a plethora of “I will not write X” because I knew the setting was so problematic. A short list of my demands besides not being willing to write Indigenous erasure, was that we needed to change the names of the Pure Tribes (and the term Pure Tribe itself), we needed to change the word Totem to Patron, and also the Patrons of the Pure Tribes. We needed to move away from the term Metis for obvious reasons, and we needed to move away from the term Skin Dancers. I also specifically noted that there was a lot of cultural theft happening from the beginning of Werewolf until now that I wanted to address. The only way these issues were going to be addressed was to convince Paradox they were actual issues on the level of PR concerns, because nothing else was likely going to be considered. So in order to achieve this, I put in weeks worth of research, writing, and meetings with top level administrators with Hunters Entertainment so that they could bring this information to Paradox. I never documented my hours, but I would guess that I did approximately 80-100 hours of what I could only describe as cultural consultation work for free that was outside the contract work I was hired for. Let’s be clear: I did this willingly because I was passionate about the positive changes I wanted to see in this product, because I believed that Werewolf’s historic ills could be turned toward non-toxic representation.

Besides my actual words, such as naming the Ghost Council, and arguably the name Gale Stalkers came from a combination of names I pitched to Paradox after Winter’s Teeth was denied, and several sentences and paragraphs that I have seen so far that appear so close to what I originally wrote that you could imagine they were just edited versions, my largest contribution toward the final version of Werewolf: 5th Edition was this work. The only reason the offensive, appropriated names were changed were because of hours of my work to convince them it needed to happen. The reason that the Gale Stalkers aren’t just dead and gone: again, I pushed against this. The reason that Skin Dancers, Totem, and Metis will not appear as canonical titles? I pushed against their unwillingness to alter these things (see Karim’s defense of Wen**** Tribe name above).

Further, and this is the biggest reason I decided to write this article before seeing the final version of the book, I want to mention that I was also included in discussions with Hunters Entertainment to potentially be part of the art direction team, especially to oversee depictions of Indigenous characters, regalia, and art, to ensure that it would be represented either respectfully or not at all. I decided I needed to speak as soon as possible after the artistic portrayal of Tāme Iti appeared in the Glass Walkers preview without his permission. There are many arguments surrounding this issue and I am not going to address everything, but ultimately, I can tell you that had I remained as part of the art direction team, and saw that, I would have questioned it immediately. Even if I didn’t recognize Tāme Iti immediately, I would have asked what the source was on the depiction of moko in that piece, because I am aware that this is a sacred form of art–and I had already discussed wanting to make sure things like Crinos in headdresses didn’t appear in the book (as had often happened in previous editions, particularly on a certain white-skinned character whose name rhymes with Steals-the-Past).

As time working on this project went on, and I went through rounds and rounds of trying to convince Muammar and Paradox that it was important to not steal Indigenous identities, art, and stories, and that a greater effort needed to be put in powerful and empowering Indigenous representation, and I constantly ran into refusals and criticisms that were clearly hateful toward Indigenous identities and peoples, not to mention the push to represent Nazism as a major part of the game setting, I grew increasingly frustrated and restless with feeling like I was trying to work on a challenging project while also defending my right to exist as the person I am at every turn. Eventually I turned to another Indigenous TTRPG and game creator to ask for advice, and after a long and difficult discussion, I came to the conclusion that I was going to talk to the Hunters administration team and tell them that if Muammar kept using slurs and other anti-Indigenous language and attitudes, I was going to need to step off of this project, because it was harmful to me on a personal level. In furtherance of this point, I have been avoiding doing any contract work at all where I can tell that I am wanted for my specific cultural perspective ever since, because this situation was so harrowing for me.

Unfortunately, before I could have this conversation, after one final draft of Younger Brother and Bone Gnawers (which had its own issues, but that is not the point of this discussion), before we received any other specific feedback, the Hunters Entertainment administrators announced to the writing team that Paradox had decided to take the book in-house, and would no longer need our services.

The main point I would like to leave you with, besides these few specific quotes (out of dozens and dozens) that Muammar made that were anti-Indigenous, is that there is often a big call to have more BIPOC voices in various entertainment industries, so that both our stories, perspectives, and unique views on how the universe and life works, can be included; so that an industry that is historically, harmfully Eurocentric, might turn toward new, healthier, and inclusive directions. And I agree with this call for change, but I implore you to consider the conditions that BIPOC creators often have to work under: doing cultural/identity work and consultation for free as part of being present, being subject to vicious refusals of our experiences and perspectives, and straight-up having slurs lodged against our work. I want to see these changes in the industries we love, including the gaming industry, but currently the people who are in charge, who have the most power, are severely hostile to our work and our perspectives. This is why, for example, works like Coyote & Crow were done with an almost entirely Indigenous group of creators, and led by Indigenous creators, because trying to work for and with this ugly, hateful, and xenophobic group of people is so often exhausting, both mentally and spiritually, and because no good changes end up being made.

I am glad the harmful, appropriative terms were removed from the setting. I am glad I was part of the fight to make that real. I am not so glad that I was treated with hostility and racism by Muammar for the effort and love I put into this work, and I am not so glad that I will certainly be reviled by one of the two communities I did this work for–the gaming community, and certainly the people in power in this industry–and I am also not so glad that I didn’t have the opportunity to properly acknowledge how much of Werewolf’s base themes and setting are twisted and tied-up in Indigenous appropriation without giving the proper acknowledgments.

More than anything, I hope that this story will help you, the fans, realize that there is a lot of darkness in these communities, and they won’t change unless you hold their feet to the fire.

Ánaagodzįįhł

J.F. Sambrano

#decolonization #ttrpg #werewolves #writing #world of darkness #werewolf: the apocalypse #werewolf the apocalypse #mage: the ascension #vampire: the masquerade #changeling: the dreaming

3K notes · View notes

xxzlushiez · 2 years ago

Note

Can you do tom x f!reader who's in the band and they were always like bestfriends no feelings for eachother or anything but as they get older like around 2007/08 he starts to realize he's totally in love w/ reader and tries to get rid of his feelings by sleeping w/ a bunch of girls but nothing helps because he can only think of reader? And they end up going to a party together and having fun and shii and then they end up on a balcony outside just drinking out of solo cups totally plastered and tom confesses to reader and kisses her but reader is super shocked and surprised and doesn't really know what to say so she doesn't kiss him back and just stares at him, and he doesn't take it very well he's just like "...oh.." and then gets up and reader tries to stop him and he's like "no, no I'm just gonna go back to the party" and stumbles out w/ a broken heart but in reality reader liked him back too but didn't know she did until he confesses so over the next few weeks she realizes how much she's in love with him and she goes to his room to tell him all romantic and shit and they end up having soft sex (or not wtv you're comfortable with) ty sm!! I love your writing btw!

EEEHHHH THIS IS SO CUTE IM SO EXCITED TO DO THIS (and tysm for the compliment❤️)

Miscommunication

T! Kaulitz x F! Reader

Synopsis: you and Tom have always been good friends, but he realizes he wants to be more..what’ll happen when those feelings don’t falter?

Notes: 18+, Name is in the band, flashbacks to ‘Devilish’, drinking, getting drunk, concerts, parties, jealousy, talks of unrequited feelings, Tom being a attention whore💀, insecurities, platonic! Bill x reader, oral, soft sex, underlying sub! Tom (I hate using that word but idk how else to describe it???)

A/N:tysm Anon for requesting and I hope this lives up to your expectations, I decided to right this in normal style instead of bullet points, I hope you don’t mind. This is was frustrated I wanted to get it out on the 3rd😭 bro this is a few days later and it took so long because i just hate the way it turned out im so pissed at myself rn

“I act like I don’t care, that’s cause I don’t care”

For as long as you’ve lived you and Tom have stuck together like glue, you lived a few streets away but being one of the only kids their age in the neighborhood it was hard for you to not gravitate towards them.

You guys weren’t exactly alike, but more like you complimented each other, he was all brash and broody like almost every other boy going through puberty and you were kind and sweet always helping whenever it was needed.

Soon you were invited into a band that consisted of two other troublemaking kids you hadn’t met yet, you traveled around to small talent shows and state fairs to perform music. It was a rough start; you weren’t popular by any means and were made fun of for what you liked to do.

It didn’t get to you like it got to Tom yet you let him rant and yell about it to you because you knew, along with everyone else, that it was just a matter of time before you five would be praised for your talents instead of bullied.

And you were, your band became a hit, Devilish became Tokio Hotel, garage performances became studio practices, and backyard shows slowly became country-wide concerts. Tom also changed, from a little boy who would yell at anyone who messed with his friends to a teen that couldn’t even bother with people hating.

It was different, you were all different, but it was a good difference. Bill became confident, Tom became more open, Gustav wasn’t shy, and Georg was well…Georg was amazing to begin with, it just doubled. The few fans that consisted of you guy’s parents and a few old neighbors became thousands, girls and boys alike paid to come and watch the five of you perform live.

When 2009 rolled around you were known across all of Germany and a few other countries. You couldn’t have been more successful, as the years progressed Tom morphed into someone completely different. Everyone knew of his reputation, a boy who had a new girl in his car every day.

You guys didn’t drift per se, but you didn’t talk about all the things like you used to. That was okay, some things are better left unsaid, but it was weird. You both used to talk to each other about everything and it just changed so suddenly it left you confused for a while.

But you learned to accept the fact that he wasn’t the same and took advantage of that time to get closer to the rest of the band, especially Bill. He became your number 1, always there with you whether it be shopping to helping you get ready. This was one of those instances where you ended up in your shared hotel room with him and Tom.

“This is going to look really good on your Name I promise!”

You let Bill practice his makeup skills on you, a little hesitant at first because of the particular style but when you saw how his face lit up when you agreed you couldn’t say no. Bill also said the style suited you perfectly.

Tonight, was particularly special compared to other nights. It was a large party hosted by a company in celebration of Tokio Hotel’s rise to fame. Bill made it a goal to doll you up in fancy lipstick and glittery eyeshadow before leaving, which Tom wasn’t too keen on.

“Bill hurry up the party starts in like 20 minutes.”

You looked over a Tom from the corner of your eye. He was sprawled out on your bed flicking through the channels on the hotel’s tv. He was already ready and had been ready for at least an hour now.

“Be patient Tommy not everyone can just wear whatever they find on the floor.”

Bill let out a laugh when he saw how offended his brother got at your insult before turning back and applying pretty shade to your lips.

“Tom wah wah hurry up the party starts in 20 minutes blah blah blah!”

He mocked his brother in a high-pitched voice before pulling his brother from the bed and onto the hard floor with a thump! grabbing your hand and running out of the room leaving him behind as you laugh.

“What the fuck you two! Get back here, I’m literally your ride to the party!”

———

The party was boring if you were being honest. But that was probably just you. There was no one you knew except the band and some celebrities and they were all doing their own thing so you were stuck lying on one of the many plush sofas the company had lying around.

Your eyes trailed over to Tom as he walked towards you, handing you a vibrant red solo cup while he settled himself next to you on the couch, moving your legs to lay comfortably over his lap while you stared at the contents of the cup.

“What’re you doing just sitting here? You’re always in the mood to party.”

He was right, you loved to party. It was one of the only times you could let loose when on tour. Today you just weren’t feeling it like you usually were.

“I don’t know, I think it’s the fact that I ordered a Pina Colada and got vodka. But who knows.”

He hummed as he absentmindedly observed the area. Tom had an unusual habit of wanting to be around you but never talking, preferring silence, it never bothered you so you let your head lay against the armchair swirling the drink around in your hand as you observed him.

He was never really good at taking your compliments, always avoiding them in some way with a “What’re you talking about?” Or the “Name just shut the fuck up”. You figured it had to do with the whole ‘I’m too cool for compliments’ thing he had going on, but it never stopped you from slipping up and saying something every once in a while.

“You're so beautiful Tom” and he was, honestly. His eyes reflected the neon lights that flashed above giving him that euphoric effect, the curves and dips of his face were perfectly sculpted to him. His true smile was so unbelievably cute, one that only you and the band had the pleasure of seeing, and his laugh…oh my god his laugh. You were definitely drunk. Whatever.

He gave you a quick side eye at the sudden praise before getting up and grabbing the cup out of your hand successfully spooking you.

“Let’s go smoke.”

‘Let’s go smoke’ was usually his way of saying “you're being annoying, let's get high” but you nodded and took his waiting hand as he led you through the busy crowd and out some double doors.

When out on the fairly sized balcony he grabbed a joint from out of one of the side pockets on his pants, while you flicked open your lighter that you had found stuffed under some gum and candy wrappers in your handbag.

He always enjoyed it when you smoked together, the delicate flame illuminated your face just enough to see the features that he’d always admired. Maybe that’s why he hated it when you complimented him, because he always wanted to do the same but couldn’t.

Nervousness wasn’t something he felt. There was no reason for him to be nervous. Nerves were for insecurity, anxiousness, that was bullshit to him, well until it came to you, and that oh so familiar feeling bubbled up in his stomach when you looked at him under the dim light.

He concluded that he had a thing for you pretty early on, when he was about 16. One time you pulled a fan on stage that you told the band you found particularly attractive. Bill teased you and Georg and Gustav laughed as you all made your way to the bus, but he stayed back. Deciding that the pit in his stomach wasn’t jealousy like he thought it might be and just that natural protective feeling for a friend.

He didn’t want to think about the possibility that he liked you. You’d always been best friends and that was how it was supposed to say. He remembers how Bill would always tell him “Being best friends with someone like Name isn’t a good idea” because he wouldn’t wanna be just friends. Bill was right and that scared him.

After that realization he took notice of who he gravitated towards in hookups, they all looked in some way, like you. He thought it was weird. It wasn’t like he selectively picked out the ones with similar features as you…right?

“-Tom, are you listening? Pass the joint you hog”

You plucked the blunt from his hand and he stared as you inhaled some of it, releasing the air into his face, looking at him with a weird expression. You watched him stride forward and suddenly his lips were pressed against yours.

You pulled away after a few antagonizing seconds and hesitantly looked at him. You saw the way his face dropped, probably realizing what he just did. Shit.

“Tom I... you're drunk. It’s fine, okay? You won’t remember this in the morning let’s just...let’s just go home, okay?”

That nerve quickly turned into frustration as he rolled his eyes turning towards the entrance and muttering something under his breath before pushing through the doors back into the party, leaving you alone on the cold balcony with a burnt out joint and heart.

———

It had been a few weeks since the incident on the balcony, and you concluded that he did remember it the day after as he wouldn’t talk or even be around you alone. It was fine at first, but by the time the second week rolled around it was starting to affect everyone else.

His performance was slower than normal, and he brought more girls to the hotel who unsurprisingly leaked where he was were staying and crowded around the hotel to catch a glimpse of the five of you.

He was being so unprofessional; he didn't give you time to voice your feelings about what happened and just up and left you in the dark. Like how do you even bring that up?

“Hey Tom, yeah I know that I didn’t kiss you back even though you totally unexpectedly pounced on me and it looked like I rejected you because I thought you were full-on plastered but like I’m in love with you so could you stop ignoring me?”

Yeah, that’s a no. So, you just endured it for a while until he decided to lay off. That point happened around the 3-week mark when the band was on a small break from tour.

He made it his goal to stay inside his room the whole time, sulking as Bill told you. You were at ends meet, if he couldn’t just talk to you about it like adults then you would have to do it yourself.

This leads up to the moment where you’re standing in front of his door contemplating all your life choices.

Crrrrrreeeakkk

Are you serious, the one time you were hesitant about your decision he just had to open the door and make it for you?

“Name?”

“Hey, Tom uhh..can we talk about the party?” This is so awkward. What the fuuck.

He stood there hesitant for a second before opening up the door for you to come in. You ducked under his arm and situated yourself at the edge of his bed as he stared at you from the doorway.

“Okay um..so I’ve been thinking a lot about that moment and I just wanted to ask you something.”

He gave you a small nod of acknowledgment and you continued.

“Do you like me? Like I don’t know if the reason you kissed me was just heat of the moment and you just got upset because you were drunk and your feelings were all mixed or something but I really want us to go back to normal…I miss you a lot and it's weird not seeing you at our practices”

You watched him closely for any signs of discomfort but his face was unwavering except for a light smile at your words easing your nerves only a little.

“I like you; I’ve liked you for years And Scheiße I miss you too but don’t wanna be just your friend anymore and if that changes things between us just forget about this whole thing”

You smiled softly walking towards him and cupping his face with your hands, bringing your lips to his feeling him relax into you.

His breath caught in his throat when you grazed your fingers against the front of his pants, slightly palming him through the jeans when he abruptly pulled your hand away.

“Name I wanna do this with you…but I don’t wanna have sex like I normally do. I want it to mean something because you really mean something, I just don’t know how”

“Let me show you, Tom.”

——

Tom groaned when your lips pressed against his pelvis, muscles flexing underneath you at the feeling. You hummed in contentment before coming back up to him and giving him a quick kiss and taking off his boxers.

He’d never had someone take their time on him, it was foreign, different, you looked so pretty as you toyed with his cock. Seeing what made him shiver and what gave him goosebumps.

Laying your tongue flat you licked a thick strip up the underside of his dick watching the way his eyes roll back in pleasure.

“Mhm…just- just like that Name please mhm…keep going.”

Voice slightly weak, he begged you to continue, not like you’ve ever heard and it encouraged you to continue, hands slick with his precum you stroked him at a controlled pace, squeezing slightly at the head hearing his soft curses get louder.

“Let’s empty that brain of yours ‘mkay?”

While you made yourself comfortable on top of him you felt his hips shift under you, his hands finding place on your hips. You align yourself with his cock, sliding down and listening to the way he mutters your name like a prayer as his cock disappears inside you.

“Shit this is much better than I ever imagined… s’much better...” his eyes raked your body seeing his hips met your thighs. You push down on his legs to keep him steady and use them as leverage to grind against him. Not even minutes later did his quiet concealed groans turn into gasps and random obscenities.

Seeing your pace begin to slow he flips himself over taking you with him, letting your legs rest flush against his shoulders next to his ears. He experimentally rocks his hips finding a comfortable rhythm, laying his hand flat on your stomach feeling at the bulge.

Now it was your turn to be a noisy mess, covering your face with a pillow in an attempt to muffle yourself but it was quickly discarded somewhere on the floor by Tom.

“Don’t- don’t do that- you look so pretty writhing under me like that, I could stare at you all day…shit shit shit.. if you keep tightening around me, I won’t last long...”

You smiled as you looked up at him. His eyes were closed tight and his jaw was clenched tight, focused on how you squeezed around him. You let your hand travel to his face tracing his features. His eyes opened at the touch and he sucked in his breath, feeling his high approaching.

You were glowing, your hair fanned out on the bed, your eyes slightly glassy from his pace, sweat collecting on your hairline, suddenly every part of him felt so sensitive and his lips connected with yours before his hips stuttered letting out a guttural moan making sure you had ridden through your orgasm.

You cried out in his neck holding him against you as he continued for a little longer before coming to a halt, collapsing on top of you. Holding you against him in a vice grip.

“I love you Name, a lot”

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accio-victuuri · 1 year ago

Text

January 2024 CPNs 🍭🍬🍪

starting off the year strong with some good old candies that puts a smile on our faces. i have to say that this month has some challenges because tho we have sweets, there were some outside voices that affected some of us in a negative way. being a bxg is a continuous learning process, and i hope all of us get stronger and learn that xz and wyb will always be the priority. we will respect them. we will be kind to them. and i guess that’s the good thing about monthly recaps like this, a reminder that bxgs live the good life! 🫶🏼

now let’s review this lovely month… ⬇️⬇️⬇️

• New year’s eve candy goodness

• Additional NYE clowning, one of the set props for WYB’s stage, is a clock. It’s not set as 10:05 in an obvious way, but if you turn it just right you will see the 10:05. Most likely a coincidence but who knows.

• ZZ & WYB featured in Elle Japan

• 1/2 yibo official weibo video post

• Probably a coincidence but in WYB’s interview he mentioned that one of his favorite Actors is Sean Penn. Understandable. However people are screaming cause “Sean” is also XZ’s first name. lol. Was this an additional point to like the actor? 😂

• 1/4: Yibo cat photo cpns

• XiaoWangZi = Little Prince

• 1/6/23, photos onset of ZZ’s new drama went on HS. to be expected, cause it’s in hengdian and anything related to ZZ’s project is bound to get some paparazzi interested. there was also some talk that the project might have shared it intentionally to stop the malicious rumors that the drama wasn’t actually filming. anyway, the CPN in all this is that a new CP was born 🥹🥹🥹🥹

baili is mostly paired with shiying — who is a favored person to be shipped with xieyun. so it seems like baili doesn’t have his one & only. so maybe zanghai can be that person. and both their stories include court politics so it’s perfect.

• The Boys & their late night city adventures

• ZZ & WYB + Mimi the Cat

• A new/old snippet from their thailand fanmeet rehearsal where they wanted to hear each other’s voice on their earphones

• WYB smiling cause he heard XZ’s sample/demo for the song tomorrow will be better during recording

• 1/11 zsww rumor : cutting their hair

• 1/12 same light and shadow in studio post caption & another wedding outfit

• THEM WITH A KID 🥹🥹🥹 it’s giving suo-er vibes!

• Weibo Night recap & candies

• yibo is seat #23 and then xzs posts their video at 00:23. what a coincidence 👀

• same brand heurueh bits

• In his SINA interview for Weibo night, he was asked who he prefers to go with during vacations and he answers friends. but before saying that he stuttered. you all know how we are with XZ and his stutter, meaning he is changing his answer or is a bit nervous cause the true answer is revealing. Tell us, who do you really wanna go on vacation with? 😏

• The boys being tourism ambassadors of their hometown which led to them being featured in a newspaper

• A fansite posted a series of photos showing how XZ signed the backdrop for Weibo Night. It clearly shows how he looks at WYB’s signature and the decides to sign right next to it. There are videos too that show this much better. I guess this one depends on people’s interpretation. I think those who are anti cpf will see this as a coincidence and say that XZ just signed randomly on the side cause the other spaces already look crowded. But then again, you can’t deny that he saw WYB’s signature. He knows what it looks like. They both spent so much time signing stuff together during CQL promotion so it’s safe to say that he recognized it. If they are sworn enemies like some people love to imply, why would he sign near WYB’s? This is pretty clear to me, it’s his way of being right next to WYB. 🫶🏼

Here is a closer one posted by someone who attended, you can see how close they are.

• an assistant in weibo night who took care of them both & who seems to be their friend

• matching lawsuits of anti fans

• both of them showing up at loreal annual meeting to give their messages

• our boys love to stay hydrated! 💦💦💦

• a video from SDC where the OP said WYB’s reaction was due to their wangxiao headbands. I know there are a lot of toxicity and fanwar that happened because of SDC fan support and there is some narrative from his so/os that WYB hates us. so/os are free to hate on us but i don’t think it’s ever right to project that onto WYB who is like the most accepting person. let the fan wars be between the fans, don’t bring WYB into it and claim stuff that will put him in a negative light.

• mystery tennis photo where people clown that he could be with xz. but i personally think he is just with some friends, but that doesn’t take away the possibility that he plays with xz 🎾

• GQ caption similarities and sexy backs - and i think the biggest takeaway from this whole GQ drama is that fans should remain rational and we should trust the boys and their decision. I have talked about it initially here, but that was more of calling out fan etiquette than the cpn implications. some bxgs really fell into the brainwashing package of solos and i wanna discuss that here cause this fandom is not only about candies but being firm in our belief. you had shrimps saying wyb is the enemy cause he is all cozied up with gq, and some bxgs bought that. they were “disappointed” with wyb and made up stuff about him doing things against his will. then the same people were slapped in the face when yibo continued to work with him for his album which is about as personal as it gets. only a few respected wyb’s decision and trusted in him & xz. motos are saying gq will never work with someone like xz cause he is the enemy, and that’s why wyb is comfortable with rocco and team. which is proven to be wrong now cause he is working with them. who knows, they may even do a full feature for LOCH. this is a lesson to bxgs, do not rely on solo sob stories to make sense of zz and wyb cause they only see one side of the story. they were always okay with GQ. Maybe GG was hurt at some point but he moved on and so should the fans. i just hate the feeling that ZZ & WYB were so happy with the collabs they did with GQ, in the meantime, BXGs who are supposed to understand them the most were nowhere to be found. we should do better next time.

there are serious efforts out there to make us turn against one of them, and use cpfs as anti minions, so we should be more careful.

• BJYX and Tennis 🎾🎾🎾

• Their Ordinary Life - a translation of a post made about their lives as normal people, and riddled with known CPNs.

• the connection between the tod’s strap included in xzs 2024 media gift box and wyb’s alleged gucci strap accessory in SDC 5

• early cpf story

• new clue from a drawing of a cake 🎂

#bjyx #yizhan #there is no science here i’m just clowning like i always do

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