#thegreatking | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

shiningsagittarius · 1 year ago

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“Partially because someone else (I'm not sure who, but I think Sophie figured it out) eventually made @thegreatkate-weathermachine ”

*Waves shyly*

I revealed my identity after like 3 hours because I can’t keep a secret to save my life XD

My Appropriately Unhinged Supervillain Reveal Monologue (or how I broke the MBS Tumblr Fandom), My Official Heartfelt Apology to All I Have Wronged, and a Detailed Account of the Valuable Lessons Learned Along the Way

Part 1: How did this even happen?

Well my friends, after a long few weeks? months? (idk how time works anymore) it's time to finally drop the curtain. To expose the darkness inside of myself, the silliness I spread without reserve, and the crimes that I have committed.

And yet, it was never my intention. I wanted to do something good, to make people happy. And yet somewhere along the way things got messed up. And this is my account of that tale.

There are two pieces to this puzzle that I must reveal to the good people.

The What (or rather Who, is behind the accounts and what accounts exist, which by the time you are reading this I will have already done via some very dramatic confessional videos)

The Why: Why I did all of this in the first place?

It may surprise you to discover that this really was so simple in the beginning. Surprising innocent and well-intentioned actually. And yet my motivations, as well as the players in this chess game, grew and changed significantly as we drove each other further and further in madness.

It began with @ldcurtain. You see, I'd never made a side blog before and thought it would be fun to do one. Some of you in the Star Wars fandom might be familiar with the "Emo Kylo Ren" twitter account that was super popular when the sequel series was a thing. That's basically what I wanted to do here. My plan was to tell no one about this, start by making some posts with fandom tags and having the account reblog posts from people in the fandom and see how long it took to for people to catch on. Obviously, I knew that eventually, it would be clear it was me, that wasn't meant to be a secret, at least not at first, but I was curious to see how long it would take people to notice.

Sounds like a fun idea right? Well, it wasn't for long. And incase you are part of another silly fandom and are thinking of making a side blog of your own, I would like to give an account of where it all went wrong so that you might be able to avoid the mistakes I made.

Initially, I didn't want an overwhelming response overnight, but rather to slowly have the account's presence make itself known, so I only reblogged a few posts after I set up the account. I also covered my tracks by cleverly distracting the fandom with the "which MBS character are you?" ask game, which occupied the attention of most people in the fandom so that they didn't notice the side blog at first.

The distraction proved to be a good tactic, but I made one fatal mistake, and that was that one of the first posts I reblogged was Milk's (@mvshortcut), who is one of the biggest MBS tumblr accounts. This was my first mistake. What I should have done was have the account reblog posts from accounts that only posted occasional MBS content, who would have likely seen the username and figured "oh this is probably a funny parody blog thing I just wasn't aware of. Ok" and followed the account without really questioning it, and then had the account do this several more times so that by the time the wider fandom was aware of it's existence, the account would already have a sizeable following and have existed for a least a week or so, and tracking down who made it would be less obvious (although that was never meant to be a full time secret).

But then there was something I didn't count on: other people making side blogs to counter my side blog. Enter @electroshockledroptha. Who I knew immediately had to be Gert and Milk. Now, we can sit here and say "well, Milk knew, but technically that blog and the Italians were really just Gert" all day long, but I knew that if Gert or Milk was doing this, the other had to (or more than likely) knew about it (so I will count them as one person for the sake of this analysis post). Why did I know this and how did I know it was them? Well, first off all, the electroshockledroptha account responded to my reblog of one of Milk's posts, so that was the first clue. I had a lot of other clues it was them as well, because I've been following both their accounts for sometime, but all you need to know is that Gert and Milk and I had enough clues and details to know about each other's Italian and Character Accounts from the very beginning and know that the other party knew about the their blogs as well. At least, I knew that the blogs were theirs, and I suspect that Gert/Milk were able to put enough clues together to determine that all the character side blogs were mine.

Which put us both in an VERY interesting situation, which Gert (@bi-demon-ium) compared to a game of chess. Although we knew who each other was, we could not come clean without exposing ourselves, as stating how we knew about the other's secret side blogs would reveal that we were also running a secret side blog account. We also were hesitant to message each other, at least I was on my end, because even though I knew the accounts belonged to Gert/Milk, and that they had enough information to figure out who I was, I didn't know for sure whether or not they had actually done so, or whether they knew or suspected that I had done the same. By the time of my confessional videos are released, I'm 99% sure that they all already know that I was most of the character accounts. Did they know that at the point the accounts were created? They could have if they examined the evidence, but whether they did or not, or just suspected me based on vibes, I have no idea.

But how did 2 simple parody accounts (@electroshockledroptha and @ldcurtain) turn into this whole Italian drama?

At this point, I considered my options. On the one hand, was it nice that my account was getting some appreciation/interaction? Sure. But the @electroshockledroptha accounts interactions overshadowed my own pretty quickly (I suspect due to Gert/Milk having bigger followings and the fact that they could both reblog posts from @electroshockledroptha with less suspicion than I could reblog posts from @ldcurtain because it would just be one person reblogging for exposure vs. two people).

However, this point quickly became irrelevant when I realized I had a new problem.

Remember, at this point, my plan is just to make the @ldcurtain account and then I considered maybe a few other parody accounts of other characters to jump in when a joke requires them to do so. But now I know that Gert and Milk are responding with their own parody accounts, and it's only a matter of time before they or others respond and start taking control of the URLs (sure enough I discovered @drgarrison was already taken by this point as were most of the variations although I did manage to get the username @thedrgarrison). So I took URLs for Sticky, Reynie, Kate, and Constance too, though I never ended up using the one I made for Kate, partially because someone else (I'm not sure who, but I think Sophie figured it out) eventually made @thegreatkate-weathermachine).

So that first night, knowing most of my followers were likely in the middle of finals and/or asleep, while I myself was procrastinating on several very important responsibilities (which I have dearly paid for), I experimented with side blogs and made @mr-nicholas-benedict, @jackson-and-jillson, @shepardquaidcurtain, @jeffers-headofsecurity, and @nerissaeurusbenedict, had them have a few interactions, and then went to sleep. I can't quite remember if this is before or after the Garrison clones show up, but I also knew that was Milk and Gert at the time.

Now, many noticed that @mr-nicholas-benedict and @jeffers-headofsecurity are main blogs vs. the others were side blogs under different accounts and might wonder why I did that, why I followed who I did, and what the strategy was.

The answer? There was none.

I just needed to get the usernames before Gert and Milk (and others, who I knew would be jumping on soon) and was experimenting to try to figure out the exact rules of side vs. main blogs. For example, when making these blogs, I quickly realized that while tumblr does allow you to make a fair amount of side blogs in a day (10), it counts every time you attempt to make a side blog with a URL that's already taken as one of your uses. I don't know if that was because of a computer error on my end, or if that's just tumblr, but either way, I ran out of room under @nobody33333333. And I thought of ways I could use @mr-nicholas-benedict and @jeffers-headofsecurity to ask @ldcurtain questions, which meant they were perfect for main blogs.

Now on the one hand, taking the URLs, was a smart move for what I wanted to do. The not so smart move was activating them so soon. This was my second mistake. Because this baited Gert to respond with Italian parody accounts, which he used to viciously and ruthlessly attacked my character accounts (all good though Gert, no worries, you did it in the name of silliness, which is an understandable and noble cause).

By this point, I'm almost certain Gert and Milk had to realize that the parody accounts were Nobody (me) and that I knew that they were the Italians.

And this was when I realized that I made a third mistake. Perhaps the worst mistake I could have possibly made in all of this, so please, if you ever consider doing something like this and hear nothing else from this rant, hear this.

If you are creating parody side blogs for a fandom, and have an internet friend in that fandom, particularly one that is very very nice to you, and does line by line analysis posts on your fics and really enjoys your content, you need to tell them about what you're doing.

Because if you don't, there is a chance that they might voluntarily decide to take up the mantle of detective and start hunting for you, and sending DMs and making posts like "can you believe all these fake parody accounts? Don't worry, I'm on the case and will stop at nothing to expose them. Any thoughts on who they could be?" Which puts you in the VERY uncomfortable position of having to semi-deceive them, which spirals in a web of lies and guilt that will haunt your soul forever (Sorry @sophieswundergarten. I felt legitimately very bad about that).

There's a lot to discuss when it comes to Sophie's detective posts, and as brilliant as they were, I'll start with the few hints she didn't pick up. For one, I don't think anyone mentioned the mbs ask game I made? I thought for sure someone was either going to dismiss me as a possibility because people kept giving me Rhonda and nice characters (and I enjoyed seeming like a good person in fandom's eyes while it lasted), or randomly accuse someone who got Curtain in the ask game of making @ldcurtain as a response to the ask game, or point out that several people said during the ask game that I gave off "mysterious and suspicious, yet ultimately kind mentor vibes" and I responded with "great that's the vibe I'm going for" so I had to be behind all this. But the ask game didn't seem to come into play at all. Expect for Seymour, but I'm pretty sure everyone knew I was him because I openly confessed to being behind that account and @ldcurtain on my main multiple times before the confession videos were released. So @oflightningandstars, I appreciate your "I KNEW it" comments, but, in fairness, I was pretty obvious about those two accounts, and neither were meant to be a secret at all.

Another missed clue was the ask boxes on my side blogs. I intentionally only opened the ask box on some of my side blogs. This was A) because I didn't want to be overwhelmed with asks and B) VERY intentional when it came to @shepardquaidcurtain because I was terrified that someone would send an ask with an art request, and I'd have to respond with either "oh sorry, my dad doesn't let me post my art on here, he doesn't want to risk other people to stealing or taking credit for it" or I'd actually have to attempt to draw something. And while my fic writing and character sideblogs have gotten mostly positive, though some mixed reviews, I fear my artistic talent is not quite up to that standard. But I'll let you be the judge MBS fandom.

Here is a short snippet from my MBS fic that has gotten several positive comments. Mild spoilers, but it's the scene where Garrison is brain sweeping Milligan:

“Garrison,” he said, looking at her with remorse, his own eyes beginning to fill with tears, “I-” “Don’t,” Garrison interrupted, cutting Milligan off as she shook her head and finally dared to look at her friend. “Please. Don’t apologize. I’ve already heard you do it so many times. It wasn’t your fault you weren’t there for me. I should have gone to rehab a long time ago. It wasn’t fair making you and the others look after me all those years.” “We were happy to do it,” Milligan assured her, “You were our friend. You’re still my friend. No matter what happens.” At his words, Garrison, feeling ashamed and unworthy of his loyalty, looked away again. “I think you need better friends,” she suggested. “And I think my friend deserves better,” Milligan replied. Garrison paused her work and glanced down at her hands in silence, not answering, while Milligan continued to stare at her, silently pleading with her to look at him, to listen to him, to break out of Curtain’s control. “I’m not sure what I deserve anymore,” Garrison finally answered.

Heartbreaking isn't it? Now here is my artist's rendition of the scene, which I hope that Sophie and @itsgoghtime will find just as emotionally impacting as when they first read the scene in my fic (it's hand drawn because I don't have a working stylus):

Now this is where things when off the rails in a way that Gert, Milk, and I could have never expected. We're in our little stand off, neither willing to expose each other at the cost of ourselves, each wondering who Sophie will succeed in exposing first, when the wider fandom began catching wind of what was going on. And Gert and Milk have been on tumblr and in the fandom for way longer than I have and likely have more followers, especially between the two of them, so at some point, a good number of people seemed to completely missed that this started with my parody account, because the Italian accounts were getting way more exposure, so people naturally assumed that's where it must have started. Furthermore, the main evidence against me had to do with Sophie pointing out 1 reference to my fic (which people who don't follow me have never read. Also this was not in any way something I did to try to promote my main or my fics, I only directly referenced my fic once because I felt bad about deceiving Sophie and knew she would pick up on the hint). The rest of the evidence against me had to do with the types of posts I'm known for making (which didn't matter to most of the people seeing the posts initially, because they don't follow me). But they did follow and understand the evidence against Gert and Milk, and soon this entire thing became about the Italians.

So then some other people started making fake Italian accounts and character side blog accounts, and for a brief time I didn't know if they were also Gert and Milk, and Gert and Milk didn't know if it was me responding to them, or someone else entirely. Meanwhile, everyone who made the other Italian accounts and character sideblogs was trying to figure out how many people were behind all the other accounts.

At this point, things are completely out of control (in the best way). I do love plot twists and dramatic turns, but frustrated that I couldn't control the narrative anymore despite having successfully claimed the URLs I needed, I had @ldcurtain (and by extension, @shepardquaidcurtain) block all the Italians (or most of them anyway) which was in character, and I'm sure Gert and Milk would have done more about that if they weren't busy dealing with the rival Italians.

And, once people started making side blogs to counter the ones made my me, Gert, and Milk, I decided to play along with that vibe and in the spirit of the mbs ask game made @seymour-the-orphanage-cat (with @italianseymourtheorphanagecat responding of course).

And that's when I got a mysterious message from an Italian as referenced in Gert's confession post (which lists all their Italian and Dr. Garrison side blogs), that truly was two villains playing an ominous game of chess. And it was the highlight of my day, especially the part where we both realized we'd been onto each other the entire time.

And so, even once most of the Italians had confessed, I still decided to keep my side blogs going, because I was curious to see if I could succeed in my original goal of making a successful and fun parody account.

The good news is: I have. Well... for the most part. The results are mixed. And I will be posting a full analysis on that later, but that would require more memes and screenshots of polls, etc. and I just don't have the time to make that right now, but I figured that this was the part that the good people would be really interested in: how this started.

Another important note it that not all the Italians were Gert's, some were @beepbooptruman's (which mocked my character side blogs multiple times in their DM's), and apparently we still don't know who @italianwhisperer is because I saw a video posted in the discord where it looked like they were going to confess, but instead they just showed Curtain dancing to the rick roll song. According to Sophie's latest red string, there's also an Italian vanilla extract account, but I never got any DM's from them at all, so they might be someone else entirely unconnected to the rest of the Italian accounts, but I could be wrong. Then there's @executiveinspace, which is a character account, but it's not mine. They followed most of my character side blogs, but never DMed me or any of them, so...I don't exactly know what their deal is either. But if any of them confess before the next post, I might include a bit about them too.

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this, and again, sorry things go so out of control, but I hope you enjoyed the fun! (And I will be continuing to post some occasional content from the side blogs for funsies if you guys are enjoying them, which based on your responses, I think you are!)

#long post

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