#this is specifically about lads discourse

[chuluoyi]

before i get another unpleasant ask/long-ass rant about why you hate this specific fictional character and force your unwarranted opinion on me like this again, let me just put it out here:

you all lads players have the right to choose which LI suit you best. pick your own poison

you are entitled to dislike caleb if you’re uncomfortable with his trope. but this doesn’t give you the right to police and force your hate on players who like him (and me) who do not share the same view as you. grow up and learn to respect other people’s opinions. or at the very least if you want to discuss our differing views, do it nicely

likewise, i won’t force my opinion on you either. i don’t care the least bit whether you like him or not. but this is my personal blog and i’ll say what i want to say. don’t like it? block me and move on. don’t try to convince me otherwise or argue with me bc i don’t care about your opinion at all

all of this is just a game. everyone in lads doesn’t exist. caleb’s toxicity you all talk about doesn’t exist in real life. what truly exists and is disgusting is your toxicity and immaturity. stop being miserable and spreading hate just bc you want to prove your point

hot take: if it’s sylus who’s acting like caleb, i bet you’ll eat it up still. it’s just a matter of your preference and your big sense of “entitlement” really—perhaps bc you spend money on the game. you think all people, including infold, have to cater to your wants only just bc you pay them… whereas infold is actually a business that’s thriving as is now in china, where their biggest market is. and you know what? cn fandom has none of this mad circus of caleb discourse at all, and what you and the entire global players spend on lads is nothing compared to what cn players do, so help yourself and this entire fandom by touching grass

[jathun]

Like...the way some of y'all are treating these FICTIONAL characters it's like you actually want to be able to marry them instead of treating them like idk characters in a story????

[xavissky]

There's definitely things about all the boys that make me uncomfy because a few things in my life that I will not disclose. As is my right. But those things come out in other characters I do like too.

I can be uncomfy about a character and decide to like them because I see how it makes them a more three-dimensional character with a lot of story potential, OR, i could very easily decide it's too much for me and hide the tags and say hey, not for me, that's a personal issue, nbd!

c: just enjoy and tag and scroll. Don't feel bad for doing what's best for you!

[lunar-years]

Okay I have spent all afternoon writing and I am essentially no closer really to being done with Parent Trap AU because it just got longer without being closer to a resolution but now I also have 2k of an im-in-my-blorbo-feelings-again Jamie Tartt + Touch fic so we’ll see where that goes !

[eldin-wylde]

WE GOT OUR FIRST HATER LADS!!!

But even if the spirit of this ask is kindaaaaa dogshit it's also something important to talk about, so we're gonna do that.

I'm Native American, specifically from around the Great Lakes region, which is where some of the legends of the spirit originate. And the thing about this particular spirit, is that there is a lot of variation and nuance surrounding it when you look from tribe to tribe. There are different words and spellings depending on where you're from and how traditionally inclined your family is. The most popular spelling online (and the one that gets censored and debated most often) is spelled with an e. The spelling I'm used to from stories shared by my late great grandmother is actually spelled with 2 i's and so that's the one I went with, partly to spread awareness and partly to avoid situations and discourse where people get mad at me for not censoring the word. In some tribes and situations it's regarded as bad luck to even say the name of the spirit... But I believe very firmly that if we were all to do that, we'd lose our history due to eventually no one remembering what this Spirit is and what it originally stood for.

Stories and traditions have to be shared and passed down in order to continue and have meaning. Frankly, I'd love for people to see me and go "what's a Windigo?" and Google it or ask me the question! I want the stories of my tribe to continue LONG after I die! The tragedy of the spirit of the Windigo is a warning that I feel is important and should be passed down. If people think it's problematic to even talk about the Windigo, then how will anyone know how to avoid becoming one, or becoming a victim?

There are dragon Vtubers, ghost Vtubers, kappa Vtubers, angel Vtubers, Qilin Vtubers, God Vtubers, nymph Vtubers, hellhound Vtubers, Naga Vtubers, Harpy Vtubers, demon Vtubers, all kinds of people and creatures from all sorts of cultures and traditions! So... Why not a Windigo? Why can't my traditions be shared and played on, but others' can be?

Instead of being angry about seeing a word that you didn't even know had more than one spelling, I urge you to ask yourself why it's so important that we censor and avoid shedding light on this specific creature. If even talking about it or saying the word is so offensive... How did the legend survive to this generation? People have to talk about it to tell the story.

But also uhmmmmmm you're kind of an asshole so get shadow realm'd bitch. BLOCKED!

[rookflower]

🌈

🌈 : what's the most 2010s wcforum era esque fandom opinion you still hold onto and will fight people over (things like scourges collar color, dovewings eye color, etc)

gotta be honest lads i was not there in the 2010s wcforums and can't think of anything i would go to war over rn, but here's my take on those specific discourses and some other superficial opinions i have on purely aesthetic details about characters, since i think purely aesthetic details are the most trivial topics you can be weirdly opinionated about

scourge's collar is purple by default but can also be some sort of funny novelty collar or a pride flag or some shit

dovewing's eyes are green by default but anything else is fun and allowed

short squirrelstar gang

longtail is yellow or cream, maybe a pale brown at a stretch, end of discussion

ravenpaw's eyes are not green i don't care what canon says. purple or gold.

cinderpelt cannot be both short-furred and skinny to me. she has to be fluffy or fat or buff or any combination of those things, or even just kinda neutrally cat shaped even. the law

flipclaw is a tiny little guy and he takes after his mum, ivypool, who is also a wee scrawny thing.

i do not give a shit about the crime or whatever of people making characters who are not torties torties i think it's cool as hell, especially if the design still reads clearly as the original character despite that divergence. same goes for swapped around eye colours, or any other changes.

[destinyc1020]

at this point people are looking for controversey, b/c the general consensus on the press tour has been pretty positive or ignored simply b/c the cast hasnt appeared on some of the bigger publications such as vogue, buzzfeed, Entertainment tonight, good morning america, MTV, EW, harpers bazaar, lad bible,nm bbc radio, vanity fair once they do they'll get numbers ( its these fun videos that most people watch not the interviews by specific blog, journalists etc)

Also if we look at their on appearance jimmy kimmel it was generally well recieved and is up in the millions in terms of views. Snl even made fun of the sandworm bucket, like dune press is already part of this months cultural lexicon

While there have been a few tweets from stans expressing the "vibes" have been off this should not be generalized and taken to mean that "everyone is saying the vibes are off" in reality its only a few and some anons are simply are hyper fixating on them and starting a discourse when there isnt even one to begin with. Go on the discussing film posting about austins voice in dune, people are either excited, praising austin or the odd few saying something elvis related. Or look at the posts by jimmy kimmel the vast majority of them are praising their looks ( particularly zendaya) etc. Like onve you get out of the stan/ parasocial bubble and you can see how positive people are on dune and the four main young stars. Unless we get explicit evidence that this cast hate each other or the vibes being way off anons simply just projecting how they feel onto these people. Some anons are just feeding into the stans narrow mindedness by constantly saying "look at these stans they hate florence " or whatever and reacting to every little thing. Move on and get out of the toxic stan bubble and look at things from an outsiders perspective, stans do not represent general consensus and why are what stans are saying most of them are straight delusional or outright crazy.

at this point people are looking for controversey, b/c the general consensus on the press tour has been pretty positive or ignored simply b/c the cast hasnt appeared on some of the bigger publications such as vogue, buzzfeed, Entertainment tonight, good morning america, MTV, EW, harpers bazaar, lad bible,nm bbc radio, vanity fair once they do they'll get numbers ( its these fun videos that most people watch not the interviews by specific blog, journalists etc)

I agree Anon! I actually think the press tour has been great so far! 😃 It's SOME of the weird fans who have been making things awkward.

Like onve you get out of the stan/ parasocial bubble and you can see how positive people are on dune and the four main young stars. Unless we get explicit evidence that this cast hate each other or the vibes being way off anons simply just projecting how they feel onto these people. Some anons are just feeding into the stans narrow mindedness by constantly saying "look at these stans they hate florence " or whatever and reacting to every little thing. Move on and get out of the toxic stan bubble and look at things from an outsiders perspective, stans do not represent general consensus and why are what stans are saying most of them are straight delusional or outright crazy.

AMEN! 👏🏾

Amen to all of this. Get out of the toxic bubble and breathe the FRESH air lol. 😅

[searchingforserendipity25]

Elwing/Eärendil and or Turgon/Finrod? 💗

thank you so much @swanmaids! <3

elwing/eärendil

i usually think of them as childhood friends to lovers, in the most classic, truly-felt sense, but the variety of options is so interesting.

child monarchs with an arranged marriage in name only, strangers who quickly become lovers, who later find out the other is the prince/princess of the city's other half of the populace, mistaken identity shenanigans - plenty of fair-haired mannish mariners around balar, while elwing has internalized the idea that she has to tone down constantly her otherworldly presence and can pass as an elf most of the time.

any of them is good! the end result is the same. the big square - the trumpets of the iathrim, and flutes of gondolin. a thousand eyes on them, and two people's expectations and hopes, numberless griefs. they are wed. they are fruitful. they are a family.

they are a family. they are close to each other when it is such an effort and a danger to be close to anyone. they understand each other's trauma. elwing delights in the earth and eärendil in the sea, and in the end they both belong to the heavens. but they're each other's grounding place, always.

btw, i am lowkey obsessed with the fact that all seabirds are said to travel to elwing's tower. all of them, john ronald? does she single-handedly change a thousand years of migration patterns in the wake of the destruction of beleriand, or what. this is an insane line. does eärendil watch the vast flocks from the heavens, a single moving shadow upon the surface of arda, and rejoice because his wife will be joyful and in good company?

maybe not. but eärendil definitely keeps coming home to the most fantastic combination of colourful feathers of every kind, and it is the single most beautiful spectacle in nature, i mean, mind-breakingly gorgeous. but most glorious still is the small smile on elwing's cheeks when small fledglings attempt their first flight by jumping from the shelter of her arms, certain she will grab them if they fail.

eärendil gave her the choice. elwing has had so few choices, and he has always wanted her to have all that which she most wanted.

(and they are happy. it is so important that, one day, some days, they are as happy as they can be).

turgon/finrod

they!!! the lads! the nerds themselves! where to even begin. they are bffs and fwb and qpr and secretly married and fond exes. everyone who wants something about them should go read @sallysavestheday's Keep Your Secrets.

i want to have so many more thoughts on them because i love this ship so much. but one thing i am sure of is that they invent a new word in beleriand specifically so they can do the fun 'start calling each other partner naturally and never explain anything to anyone' fashion.

finrod carved busts of turgon in nargothrond and showed them to every visitor, told beor a hundred tales of his dearest friend. there was a small, fist-sized miniature in turgon's long sleeves, a two-sided thing with elenwe on one side and finrod in the other, two halves of the same whole (and the whole is turgon's heart).

actually i think they only get officially together post-mandos, in the shared-life sense, whatever that looks for them by then. build a city; start a mellower revolution. every conversation feels like picking up the thread of a long discourse, even after hundreds of years, or after death; and it is the most interesting conversation in the world, every time.

it's fluid, it's open. comfortable. vivid! so much is strange after rebirth, but they are never strangers to each other. recognize each other absolutely after ruin and hubris and horror, when making the way through estrangement is a foundational experience in rebirth.

they are most trustworthy and familiar and dear person in the room in every room to each other, the one they can leave behind without remorse because they know they will always find their way back together at the end of any long separation.

it is whatever they need it to be, and their faith in their connection and in each other is strong enough that it never fades.

[non-binharry]

Wait what happened? Is lads still around?

yeah she's still around, though she's been driven to stick mostly to twitter because it's the perfect cesspool of like-minded people where she can be a fetishizing bl on main. she recently changed her urls here and there to alltheselights, and she also has a private twitter at daintylouwho where she's been talking about me and many many others for months. she has asserted her cishet opinions on trans people supporting the idea of harry being trans but then wants to be the victim when someone tells her she's transphobic, or when i turned the attention onto her and her friends and made it abundantly clear why exactly they have a problem with trans people thinking harry could be like us. this is our latest drama, which could have been left alone, but she's still claiming that i wrote my fic for her to try to make me out as some obsessed stalker while in public pretending that she's above being a huge piece of shit.

[qiorvo]

.

[skepticalarrie]

Hi Allie, hope you don't mind and if it's okay, can you tell me why there's a chaotic discourse on why people calling Louis a toxic masculine man?? I don't get it, I mean he's a very open and down-to-earth dude so why are people projecting??

Hello, anon! I think if really want to understand that perspective you may want to ask them, I can only give you my interpretation of what could have caused this kind of discourse. I don't know where this is coming from exactly, so it could have so many different interpretations depending on what you believe about him.

In general - and I couldn't be more honest to you when I say that - if I didn't think both Harry and Louis were queer and closeted, I mean... massive yikes, I would probably despise a lot of things about them. People seem to forget about this way too often, but Louis came out as a straight man. It was years ago and things were different back then, but still- he literally just came to someone's DMs the other day reaffirming he had a son so Larry "rubbed him up in the wrong way". How do you even stop being friends with someone just because people are saying you're gay, how much this can bother you. How many times do you have to reaffirm your masculinity and heterosexuality. Because that's what they want us to believe right?! So if you don't believe Louis is who is truly is... things don't add up, because his actions are the complete opposite of this. So that's one thing, that's one side of the fandom.

The other thing is... he's British. And some people have a very hard time coming to terms that he's just his normal british lad that loves to smoke, have a drink, wear tracksuits and manspread. I think it probably has a lot to do with the way their images were so "americanalized" over the years and how specific their branding was during One Direction, but I think people just expect him to act differently, people expect him to be one-dimensional. I don't know why any of that would be considered "toxic masculine" in the first place but I - unfortunately - have seen way too much of this discourse lately. I think we can talk forever here about how different parts of this fandom have different expectations about who they think Louis should be and how he should act, but the reality is that I completely agree with you... he's so grounded, he's so proud of his roots and of who he is. So it's a shame people can't truly see him and hear him sometimes.

[littlemisstfc]

Bonjour. ✨👁️👁️✨

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I write a lot about Transformers, Ben 10, Scooby Doo, Disney, and other topics. Please keep conversations in the reblogs and comments respectful and on point. Focus on the argument, not the person. Please don’t provoke discourse or you will be blocked. No exceptions. I don’t owe y’all an explanation on why you’re blocked. 🗞️

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Remember to have fun and be respectful towards everyone and me! 😁

Anyways, Pingu.

[austronauts]

Straight dudebro males in the hockey fanbase are incredibly and weirdly obsessed with mitch’s body and i beg them to STOP before they embarrass themselves further. PLEASE. 

Like, we know that men have been creepily fixated on Mitch’s body way before Mitch was even drafted to the NHL. It is genuinely impossible to look for old Mitch content without stumbling across at least 3 articles and disturbingly robust online discourse about how small and scrawny and “unfit for the NHL” he is but - 

Y’ALL. I! CANNOT! iMAGINE! the ENTITLEMENT of being some 38 yr old man, someone who listens to the Joe Rogan podcast and lives in a gaseous cloud of his own protein shake farts, thinking HE knows MORE about what Mitch’s body should or shouldn’t look like than MITCH HIMSELF (who’s been playing elite-level hockey since he was basically an ultrasound and is litchrally one of the best current players in the NHL) and MITCH’S TEAM OF TRAINERS (for whom maintaining hockey players’ bodies is their LITERAL ASS JOB) 

i am begging them to formulate a better understanding of the sheer range and variety of what athletic bodies can look like, and get it through their calcified gigachad brains that most elite athletes’ bodies are perfectly and painstakingly optimized to best succeed in their specific sport and roles! AND that having bulging biceps and a six-pack are not at all indicative of a person’s athleticism! How do EYE, a sentient potato with a wifi connection, KNOW THIS better than THEM. Like huh? You want Mitch to suddenly become Dwayne the Rock Johnson sized? But you’re still going to expect him to maintain his level of speed and ability to weave intricate plays? It doesn’t work that way, Brockinley.

i also bring this up because sooo much of the straight dudebro men’s obsession with mitch is SO mired in toxic/outdated notions of masculinity and plain old body shaming that have absolutely zero grounding in reality.

Like, “too soft and too weak”? He’s almost always one of the players who logs the most minutes on the ice, and is on both the penalty kill and the powerplay.

He “doesn’t care”? Do you think he would’ve lasted as long with the Toronto Maple Leafs, a franchise that has one of the meanest and rabid fanbases, if he did not care about hockey, his team, or winning.

It’s just so abundantly clear that these eejits’ definition of “strong” or “cares about his team” depend entirely on how many brawny teeth-shattering hits a player is willing to make or take. And I hate this because it’s this kind of idiotic perception that DIRECTLY perpetuates the exploitation of players’ bodies and culture of ignoring/minimizing short-term and long-term injuries in professional sports. 

And sure, Mitch is one of the most prominent young athletes in the NHL right now playing for one of the biggest NHL franchises. And you can’t be a famous professional athlete without making your body - the biggest and only asset you own as an athlete really - available for public scrutiny and discourse. BUT like, these MEN’S obsession with scrutinizing Mitch’s body specifically is just - I’ve rarely seen anything like it lmfao. 

They just hate to see pretty twinks succeed in HOCKeY, a SPORPS that they think is meant for strong brawny MANLY MEN who are all 6′3″ and 220lbs and aren’t afraid to lose all their teeth and retire at the age of 28 from permanent hip labrum damage and CTE. And I feel so sorry for them because :((((( Mitch still isn’t going to fuck you, lads! 

[betweenlands]

data breakdown of the Blorbo/Scrunkly Survey is going to take a while, so here’s a list of Every Single Fandom Cited just to tide y’all over.

you can also consider these slides to be “there’s a reason we kept reaching out to other fandoms and it’s because we have just So Many hermitcraft followers”

NOTE: this is not a popularity contest or the results of a bracket! it’s the fandom demographic breakdown of a survey we did of 100 people about what they consider to be blorbo and/or scrunkly traits. please don’t discourse at us

Plaintext breakdown of fandoms beneath the cut.

Popular responses:

Hermitcraft -- 84%

Life Series/Traffic Games -- 56%

Dream SMP -- 53%, give or take 2%

Empires SMP -- 51%

Less common responses:

Minecraft Championships -- 13%

Dominion SMP -- 11%

Lifesteal SMP -- 10%

Yogscast -- 6%

Origins SMP -- 4%

Mianite & CaptainSparklez -- 4%

Slimesicle Cinematic Universe -- 2%

Kakujo -- 2%

SMPLive -- 2%

Vault Hunters -- 2%

Afterlife -- 2%

Team Crafted -- 2%

Minecraft Mondays -- 2%

Evo -- 2%

Listed by exactly one person:

SimplySarc (“and other informational MCYTers”)

“whatever the fuck Scott Smajor’s got going on”

FutureTWT alums (“iykyk”)

IBXToyCat

Tubbo specifically

Stampy’s Lovely World

Manhunt specifically

Technoblade specifically

MCC Pride specifically

Half Hearted Hardcore

Lucian V. Ghost

CubeSMP

Honeycraft

Truly Bedrock

Tales From The SMP specifically

Lyinginbedmon

William Strife

MLGHwnt

OTV+F SMP

The Irish Lads

SMPEarth

100 Hours SMP

Legundo

Content SMP

Outsiders

Crafting Dead & Fallout

Legacy

YHS

Bedwars

RT/AH

Redstoner

IvoryCello

Mindcrack

Epic SMP

AphMau

[darlington-v]

I know different interpretations of a work are generally enriching and cool... but c!dream villan interpretations is like how to tell me you only watch Tommy without saying you only watch tommy.... which would be fine but its not a great place to be making statements about the whole nature of the dsmp lol

Wild speculation, but sometimes I wonder if like, because the dsmp didn't really start as a narrative, and a lot of fans don't nessecarily enter it expecting a narrative, but then there is one and the fandom is really discourse heavy and everyone is sort of excpeted to have an opinion while maybe not expecting to form one from the begining or not having a ton of experience with narrative in a way that would "expect" them to have an opinion or not take things at face value??, I don't know if I explained that well at all... and I don't really even think thats right nessecarily... but like wow sometimes some of the takes about power and government and villany...

Honestly, it makes sense!!!

I think something interesting is like.... looking at how animatics have shaped the like tone and culture of the fandom essentially. Like, an interesting fact that I didn't really fully grasp until SUPER recently is like...

c!Wilbur out the gate admits he is manipulating c!Tommy. Like his first youtube video on the Dream SMP he admits his goal is to manipulate c!Tommy and people like c!Tommy into helping him achieve a potion ("drug") empire to monopolize on potions because there were a lot of people on the server who like to min-max, which is to put all of your effort into this one specific skill essentially. so like... i know minecraft doesnt have a skill tree but if it did, it would be putting all your points into that one specific branch of a skill tree. So he wanted to exploit the labor of all the TommyInnits to.... maintain a Potion Empire.

THIS IS A LONG POST BC I GOT CARRIED AWAY SO BUCKLE UP

And I don't think a lot of the fandom who joined later on knows this. I certainly didn't until like a week or so ago? Like... I knew c!Wilbur had been manipulative from the start because I'm a mod of (shameless self promo incoming) @dsmpanalysis and we have a lot of different POVs in that mod team and discord and we talk about it really frequently. I joined the fandom as someone who was really big on L'manburg ESPECIALLY crimeboys, and have turned into.... *gestures vaguely to my blog*

And ngl I owe a lot of it to @1-michibiki-1 in terms of c!Dream "Apologism" but all of the mods there have expanded my thoughts and views on the storylines of this narrative.

My application consisted of like largely essays about like... how I think Dream was the villain but he was meant to be the villain because you don't get any insight into his character WHICH.... IS A FAIR ASSUMPTION AT FIRST GLANCE. People are easily villainized when you cannot get a glimpse into their thought process. It's easy to dwindle someone down into this flat character and starting out I knew Dream didn't stream the SMP on purpose.

And I personally came to the conclusion of "Oh! So Dream is supposed to be the villain." However as the story continued and I learned more about what Dream went through I began to realize that... it's more than likely a form of a red herring. My opinions on this were immediately solidified when I watched Ranboo's 2 MIL stream because both Ranboo AND Dream agree on enjoying red herrings.

There have been MANY times were Dream has said that c!Dream is a complex character and he's not a wholly evil guy and there have been times where the narrative has honestly just proved that.

Anyways, what's important though was that... I learned most of this from other people who were more focused on c!Dream rather than myself. Eventually I shifted from c!Tommy to c!Ranboo and c!Techno after c!Tommy betrayed c!Techno and I began to realize.... everything I learned before hopping in wasn't exactly what it seemed.

Part of this is because I'm older, I heavily identify with c!Techno's sense of loyalty and philosophies on government, but I especially identify with the anguish c!Techno voiced in... a lot of lore but especially the lore around Doomsday.

I'm not 16 anymore. I don't always feel wronged by adults, or older people in my case, whenever they absolutely have done something wrong by me, but I do feel wronged by my close friends. I also felt like c!Tommy's sense of loyalty didn't line up with mine after what felt like him constantly flip-flopping and refusing to understand c!Techno's morals on government didn't line up with his.

In short, it was easier to identify with Tommy in these animatics versus in the actual stream content because c!Tommy is played by a 16 year old. I'm not a teenager and my line of thinking doesn't entirely line up with people that age anymore. It's harder to place myself in the same shoes of someone's OC who is played closer to their actual age, because I'm not that age.

Regardless, I was still on the c!Dream is a villain train. I wasn't ever like... c!Dream is repulsive I hate him, but I was like omg hot villain lad go brrr.

Even when the first like... mellohi, panic room, Ranboo lore stream popped up I thought "Oh! c!Ranboo corruption arc?"

And I was excited because I really wanted this shy, nervous character to turn into villain buddies with his good pal c!Dream. I'm a total sucker for villains and corruption arcs and all that good shit.

SO I STARTED GETTING REALLY INTERESTED IN ENDERSMILE. I'VE BEEN ON ENDERSMILE SQUAD OUT THE GATE. NOT THE SAME WAY I AM NOW, BUT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED THEM TO TEAM UP.

So... upon not really keeping up with c!Dream and being relatively??? indifferent? I don't think I started arguments on c!Dream back then, but I might have. But I remember like... starting to participate more whenever c!Dream came up and looking more into Dream's character BUT ESPECIALLY TALKING WITH OUR SERVER'S C!DREAM SPECIALIST MICHI ABOUT DREAM A LOT MORE.

And because Michi has been a watcher since day one and was a DTeam fan rather than a SBI fan, she was able to provide me with more information on how the server worked pre-Tommy but especially pre-Wilbur.

Now, you could definitely argue well Michi probably has clear bias but it made sense to me when I looked back on how the storyline had been constructed and was going along, and everyone in the server talks a lot about our own biases and how we want people to maybe not lean so hard on them. Michi would also provide like anecdotes on what had happened and I'm sure links were probably provided at one point but the point was I felt like Michi had no reason to lie or manipulate how the story was told and if she did, eventually someone would have pointed it out because... Group of like... right now it's around 20 or more analysts but I don't remember how many at the time there were. POINT BEING, WE'VE ALL GOT POINTS TO PROVE AND IN MY EXPERIENCE NOT MANY OF US HAVE BEEN SHY TO PROVE THEM.

So if anyone ever had any differing opinions they would be talked about and we literally had and still have discussions.

REGARDLESS.... I DIDN'T FACT CHECK IN DEPTH BECAUSE I THOUGHT PEER REVIEW WAS ENOUGH WHEN YOU HAVE LIKE HOURS UPON HOURS OF STREAMS TO WATCH.

Anyways. Eventually I started paying closer attention and looking more into c!Dream lore but only recently have I started to triple check before speaking about c!Wilbur lore because I know everyone has biases and while I did trust everyone's thoughts and analysis in the discord, whenever I make essays I typically like it to be largely air tight and if theres a mistake, I want it to be because I forgot not because I just trusted what was said. Plus, I wanted to get down to the specifics of how Wilbur had always started with manipulation on the mind.

SO I WATCHED HIS FIRST VIDEO ON THE DREAM SMP.

AND WHAT I WAS NOT BY ANY MEANS EXPECTING WAS WILBUR TO SAY WORD FOR WORD, VERBATIM,

"SO WHY DON'T I START AN INDUSTRY WHERE I USE THE TOMMYINNITS OF THE WORLD TO WORK FOR ME, TO CREATE THINGS THAT THE MIN-MAXERS OF THE WORLD WILL WANT."

Like... this is in no way an attempt to like hardcore villainize c!Wilbur like everyone does Dream, it's just more so to like REALLY outline how far off a lot of fandom interpretation of c!Wilbur is....

Because of SBI focused animatics.

Now, when I joined I watched A LOT of animatics that really highlighted like... Wilbur being this self-loathing JD-esque, "I destroyed it because I had to because the world was against me because no one loved us, Tommy" type of character. At least... that's what it came across as.

And it definitely highlighted the fact that Tommy was a victim, which he is. He is undoubtedly a victim and no not even any dream apologist can change my mind otherwise. Tommy, despite being an instigator sometimes, didn't deserve the abuse he received.

But these animatics never shown the fact that c!Wilbur started L'manburg as a shady ploy to exploit people like c!Tommy and vilify c!Dream so he could have power.

And that was easy because Dream and Tommy had wars before. They had spars and pranks and here's the plan to take back my disks and here's the plan to out smart the thieving little child etc etc.

And all of the animatics I watched never mentioned this. Neither did the recaps though. The recaps gave the events flat out, there didn't sound like there was bias, and honestly I don't really know if there was rather than like... a lack of nuance. And it's hard to provide a recap with that much nuance in a short period of time for a youtube video, to be perfectly fair.

However, this creates a perfect formula for entirely rewriting the history of a server. c!Wilbur quite literally fucking succeeded TO A META LEVEL. He slandered and ran smear campaigns against Dream and like he even does that with Sapnap in the beginning. But what's crazy is that it transferred over into the meta! Most of this fandom understands Wilbur as a victim of mental illness, and yeah maybe? He definitely wasn't mentally well by the end of pogtopia, but he never started out with honorable intentions. L'manburg was never a victim, only its citizens. The TommyInnits of the world.

I just think it's like... such an interesting case study. Because this is like... an opinion like shared by at least half of the fandom, but the vilifying of c!Dream is shared by MOST of the fandom I would argue. Which is like even more crazy for me because that was c!Wilbur's goal!!!

LIKE I GO INSANE WHEN I THINK OF THIS BECAUSE HIS REACH IS JUST TOO POWERFUL. HE'S NOT EVEN ENTIRELY REAL, JUST A MANIPULATIVE PERSONA OF SOME BRITISH GUY.

And I mean... maybe people who have watched Wilbur's video on the SMP still maintain this idea that Wilbur wasn't always the bad guy, but honestly... I wouldn't be surprised if their introduction was still an animatic. Like bias is hard to check and I'm not going to lie I could have sworn I watched both Wilbur's AND Tommy's video on the SMP in the beginning and yet I STILL was a ride or die for tragic yet on some level still honorable Wilbur and a resilient Tommy.

Like... upon watching Wilbur's first video... possibly again I was surprised because I thought I did watch it like right before I even started watching the streams and yet I was still so invested in c!Wilbur as this tortured anti-hero.

It took 6 months of... not being in an echo chamber, full of multiple different people of different ages, different stream POVS, and people who joined the fandom at different points in time.

IDK IF THIS WAS EVEN ENTIRELY RELEVANT IT JUST FELT TANGENTIALLY RELEVANT AND THIS WAS SOMETHING I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT FOR A HOT MINUTE AFTER LIKE WATCHING WILBUR'S FIRST VIDEO AGAIN.

TLDR;

SBI CENTRIC ANIMATICS HAD A LASTING AFFECT ON THIS FANDOM AS IT'S HARD TO GO BACK AND ACTUALLY CHECK THE NARRATIVE FOR SOLID FACTS FOR YOUR OWN INTERPRETATION BASED ON THE FACT THAT THIS NARRATIVE SPANS OVER HUNDREDS OF HOURS WORTH OF TWITCH STREAMS.

[eroticcannibal]

So sorry for discoursing in your inbox but the newest argument about jkr seems to be “she takes enjoyments of her books as support of her transphobia so posting about Harry Potter is emboldening her.” When like a: she is a billionaire. She will have influence and power until the day she dies and sending anon hate to hp blogs with a couple dozen followers will accomplish nothing. Far more useful to put pressure on the people taking her money, though that is admittedly more difficult.

Absolutely. Its a bit late to cut off support when she has already managed to become among the most popular children's writers BEFORE she went full terf. The damage is done. Her ego has been irreparably inflated. Reality cannot touch her. It cannot be undone. This was set in stone back when I was a wee lad queuing outside Waterstones at midnight for the next book. Its DONE. Harassing fans does NOTHING. Like, she thinks that everyone is too scared to outwardly say they support her, which is self validating. If no one backs her up, its not because they disagree. Its because they are scared. If people back her up, she helped them be brave. This specific thing is a fight she has won and that it is impossible for her to loose. Its pointless.