#this post is blasphemy

[llitchilitchi]

oooookay, I'm not super versed in dsmp lore and I don't even really know the whole events in chronological order. but!!!! I love your monarchy restoration au. your art is so gorgeous. and the emotions there ... man

can you please give me some guideline of what should I know from the og lore to understand your au? or maybe some summary of your au?

just talk about it I really want to interact!!! :D

hi, editing Li here, the summary ended up being over 2k words. then I realised you asked for a summary to the AU, which is part of the masterpost. I went over the lore in brief, I promise it's just brief despite the length and doesn't tackle All there is to the SMP

okay, lemme try and speedrun the lore of the dream smp - given that the story of monarchy restoration centers around the Dream Team, or at least the parts that I shared, I'll be focusing on them. this will get long and I'm really sorry jghdfjd

the core ideas you should know is that: Dream, George and Sapnap were close friends, but they drifted apart as time went on due to conflicts on the server. Dream crowned George as King, but then due to George doing badly as a king and this position putting him in danger made him dethrone George, which made the rift between them grow. they were once inseparable, and now George and Sapnap thought of Dream as obsessed maniac who no longer cared for them as people. after Dream got put in prison and tortured, he broke out, and this is where the lore of Monarchy Restoration diverges from the original story of the SMP and becomes an AU, as instead of reuniting with Punz as intended, Dream is too weak and injured to do much and runs into George, who takes him in.

now for the Actual Lore Recap:

at the very beginning of it all, there were two friends - Dream and George. they found a little piece of the world for themselves, and everything was fine. then a third came, Sapnap, and then more people joined, and they lived in the same house in the middle of the lake and things were okay.

months passed, and fights turned into splits in the community and a community turned to factions, and the conflicts of factions were intertwined with interpersonal fights. (the interpersonal conflicts? the disc saga, aptly named over 2 music discs that were used as a bartering chip and have a pretty good significance in the overall story. put a pin into that.)

the two factions at play were the (retroactively named) Greater SMP and L'Manburg which declared independence from the Greater SMP on basis of xenophobia. they lost the war against the Greater SMP, the final fight being a duel between Dream and the original owner of the discs (Tommy). a deal was struck after, where Tommy offered his discs in exchange for independence (or independance, if you want to stick to the original text)

an important aspect of this war is to note that Dream offered one of the people on L'Manburg's side a deal - they betray the faction and get to become the King of the Greater SMP. this establishes monarchy in the story. they accepted, betrayed their allies, got the role of a King with the promise of 'staying neutral and uninvolved in further conflicts'.

I'll breeze through the Manberg era for the most part (despite being the most interesting one, imo). L'Manburg ran a presidental election, the original leader (who wanted to take power by scamming the whole thing) lost, and the new leader of L'Manburg (renamed to Manberg, because they're not taking any L's anymore) exiled the OG president and his right hand man Tommy, things went bad. the two exiled men started a new faction (Pogtopia) that they hoped to use to take back their "rightful place" and were given support from Dream because the new Manberg was a little too expansive. (he ended up siding with Manberg last minute for Yet Unknown Reasons, we will get to them, again, put a pin in it)

the King of the SMP very vocally sided wih Pogtopia, which was a betrayal to the core principles of their position as King. the King was dethroned, and Dream put his best friend George on the throne, with him and Sapnap serving as his knights.

upon the defeat of Manberg by Pogtopia (since Manberg's authoritarian regime ended up driving people out and most joined Pogtopia, Dream and his people fought for Manberg only as mercenaries), one of the core allies of Pogtopia - an anarchist, the blood god himself, Technoblade - turned on his former allies because they told him it was about defeating a tyrant, but all they wanted was to kill one tyrant and put their own people in his place. Techno then fled into exile.

next chapter begins after the rebuild of L'Manberg, yet the L' is back, under a new rule given that the OG president uhhh Blew Up The Country with several megatons of TNT and then persuaded his father into killing him.

King George is vibing. he is unaware of all faction wars, builds himself a holiday house far away from everything, enjoys time with new friends, all while Dream grows more and more distant due to trying to keep what is left of his old life together.

the reason the home is important to mention is that, once peace has settled over the world, Tommy decided that the discs that he traded for independence are His, in fact, and he needs to steal them - or barter for them in any shitty way possible. he still had tons of grudges against Dream, and in one of these half-grudge fueled fuckeries, he and one other character set fire to George's holiday home.

Dream found it in ruin and still burning when he came see his friend with a bouquet of flowers. there are several interpretations to this, and since Dream himself never really specified, there's a speculation that he thought that this event maybe killed his best friend, and given that George is the King of the Greater SMP, an attack by the right hand man of the current L'Manberg president on the physical property of the King of a rival faction is de-facto a war declaration.

so we are presented with an ultimatum, where Tommy is either exiled or a war starts. (exile won. it was voted on by the fans we wanted that bitch Out. this is not quite as important but the dynamics shaping up between Tommy and Dream had a massive impact on the plot.)

while Tommy is in exile, George becomes rather friendly with a new budding faction on the server. his involvement with them means that his neutrality vow was broken, and given how frequently he got harassed by L'Manberg, Dream decided to dethrone George, and put the previous King back in power. this dethronement caused a huge rift to form between George and Dream (and Sapnap, who sided with George) and the three of them fell apart with the parting words from George to Dream being "Just say you hate me."

I'm sure this won't have any lasting effects on the man who was tearing himself apart to make the world the same as it was when it was just the two of them

now in brief: the L'Manberg cabinet decided to take revenge on Techno after he turned on them after they tricked him into helping them against Manberg. the punishment? execution. how did they achieve that? they hunted him down, threatened to kill his animals, told him he will get a court process but just set him up in a guillotine. Dream intervened and saved him, thus earning a favour from Techno because both of them are traumatized warriors with trust issues that rather treat kindness as currency. Tommy runs away from the place he was restricted to in his exile, moves in with the anarchist-in-retirement-gone-pacifist Techno, the two of them end up teaming up for the time being as Techno protects him from Dream. L'Manberg in the meantime decides to host a festival to show that they are peaceful now, and nothing bad will happen again :) it takes place a week after they unlawfully tried to execute Techno, and the festival is meant to serve as public execution of Dream. However, the festival is cut short when Dream storms in because the original house where he and his friends lived - known as the Community House - got blown up. he blames L'Manberg and Tommy, and after a short conflict that happens then he declares that L'Manberg has a day to evacuate and him and Techno agree to blow up the country. a second time. and completely now.

so L'Manberg is gone now and the members of the faction scatter. within days, Tommy receives an invitation from Dream to come get his discs (I didn't know how to include it, but after the whole 'setting George's house on fire' Tommy tried to barter for the discs and for Dream to ignore him setting the house on fire, all while trying to leverage things that Dream held dear. attachment to objects and people is a running theme in here. Dream then proceeded to give his "I don't give a fuck about Spirit, I don't give a fuck about anything actually" speech, basically telling everyone they have nothing to leverage against him and he will destroy them if he needs to and them holding something hostage won't bother him.) This sets the stage for the Disc Finale. Tommy and his best friend Tubbo make their way to a specific location, far away, all alone, where they are to fight against Dream to win the discs back. they lose spectacularly and Dream reveals his "grand plan" where he has a vault to gather "all the precious items people own to control them" (and I wrote "grand plan" because it was a farce. it was a show, it was staged, all just to get Tommy to leave him the fuck alone and stop meddling with his greater plan. what is the greater plan? fuck if I knew.)

the whole thing is then intercepted when a large group of people, one of which is Dream's right-hand-man Punz who was running errands for him before, and more importantly, Sapnap. he's beaten and just as he is about to be killed, he reveals his secret: the reason he sided with manberg, all those months ago, is because in exchange for his services he got a book of necromancy. he can now bring people back to life. because of this, he is locked up in an inescapable prison in case anyone needs to use the book.

Sapnap and George are very much under the impression that Dream doesn't care for them. Sapnap comes visit Dream once, promises to return, never does. George doesn't even bother coming in, instead sleeping his days away and it catches the eye of a deity who wears the same face as his beloved Dream, and he loses himself to the illusion of being reunited with his best friend in a world where everything is perfect.

another important thing to note is that Sapnap stumbles upon a Book Of Death (yes, its death note, sapnap is a weeb, it even functions the exact same.) the thing about the book of death and the book of necromancy is that they are both books that were placed into the world by the deity wearing Dream's face (known as DreamXD, or XD for short, yes it's a little silly) and XD reveals to another character (a somewhat-deity, Foolish) that the books and their owners are intertwined in a way, and if one were to die the other dies with him.

so we have three friends, one locked up in prison and seen as nothing more but an object to use (Dream), the other a man who watched his friends, his parents and his lovers fall apart (Sapnap) and a man who cannot face the world falling apart and the loss of his friends so he gives into an illusion created by god in his dreams. and all of them have a strange tie to a stranger god.

this very fractured relationship the three have, along with their ties to the god, were the main driving force behind making this AU.

the last thing you should probably know is that Dream was locked in prison for 10 months, starved, tortured, with little to no social contact until Techno was locked in with him, but with the use of some fun magic Techno managed to escape and then "return the favour" from when Dream saved him from execution, and broke him out of prison.

there's a lot of little nuanced things I probably forgot about but this is the core of it all I hope it helps

[and-this-of-all-my-hopes]

So, I feel like I’m losing my mind. I keep seeing metas about how Aziraphale wants Crowley to return to Heaven and be an angel again because he wants them to be on the same side/be good/change/etc., etc., etc. but I don’t see that at all. I actually see it as the very opposite.

Aziraphale loves Crowley just as he is. But there’s something more. Something huge.

Aziraphale loves Crowley and because he is an angel who is stuck in seeing things as black and white, he constantly praises Crowley for being nice. For being good. For being kind.

Aziraphale has watched Crowley on and off for 6,000 years. He watched him thwart the plans of Heaven and Hell because it was unjust. He spared the lives of innocents. He did small things that made Aziraphale happy just because (like making Hamlet successful and saving valuable books). And because Aziraphale sees things in black and white, he sees all the things Crowley has done as nice, as good, as kind.

Crowley vehemently attests he’s not nice or good or kind.

He’s not exactly wrong nor is he lying when he says this. When Crowley spares goats during a cruel bet over a righteous man and swallowing laudanum to prevent a suicide, when he prevents Armageddon by working with Aziraphale and stopping the Anti-Christ from being the Anti-Christ, he’s not doing the nice/good/kind thing.

He’s doing the right thing.

Crowley chooses to do the right thing without hesitation. He is better than all of Heaven and Hell who have callous and dispassionate view of all existence because he questions, because he makes choices. Crowley sees the world for all its messiness and he sees himself. He sees a place where he fits in. He sees the blurred edges.

And Aziraphale sees that, even if seeing the blurred edges is hard for him.

But here’s the thing that Aziraphale can’t voice.

It’s the reason why he told Crowley about being allowed to return to Heaven and become an angel again. He doesn’t want Crowley to change. He doesn’t think Crowley is flawed. Or not enough.

It’s something that is so monumental that it cannot be put into words. Because to put it into words would be more than blasphemy. It’s down right unthinkable for anyone in Heaven, Hell, or Earth to say what Aziraphale knows deep in his soul.

God was wrong to cast out Crowley.

Aziraphale believes Crowley can/should return to Heaven because he knows that Crowley should never have fallen in the first place. He wants him to be forgiven because when Crowley fell it was unjust. Aziraphale is trying to correct a mistake. He’s trying to do the right thing.

Yes, Crowley would never accept returning to Heaven. And Aziraphale was wrong to even suggest it (although that conversation is another can of worms to unpack).

Aziraphale loves Crowley. He loves him exactly as he is. He doesn’t want him to change. Aziraphale knows that Crowley the best of all of them. He wants to change Heaven because of it. Because God was wrong and Aziraphale knows it.

Aziraphale may have difficulty seeing beyond black and white, but when it comes to Crowley he sees everything crystal clear and in vivid color.

[succupriest]

A priest jerking themself off feverishly while suckling and mouthing their crucifix. Clutching the rosary around their neck and begging for God to save them, which soon turns into begging for God to let them cum…

[fixing-bad-posts]

🧡 in 7th grade, i started committing to homosexuality which went on until i was an enemy of God, being more hot than God. homosexual hardness was written on my heart. idolize me 🧡

[fellomen]

when rennala gives birth to rykard and he's blonde

[trashingfish]

[keferon]

On my way of tracing every tiniest appearance of Senator Shockwave👍

Which…there wasn’t a lot. But there was more than I remembered and expected

[crumblingfaggotazula]

Happy Valentine’s Day tarnished!

[val-of-the-north]

Caria Manor at some point. Probably. Potentially.

[mouthtapedguy]

#SayNoToAtheistToast

[succupriest]

Being a priest’s first kiss… sitting in their lap as they press against you feverishly for more, their mouth open wide as you shove your tongue down their needy throat. It’s so new to them and they’re so shy and a little hesitant, but they buck their hips regardless. Choking them with their own rosary around their neck… listening to them gasp for air and claw at your back as you grind against their bulge and kiss the shell of their ear… drooling all over themselves as they weakly beg for God’s forgiveness… how adorable ♪

[playfully-sadistic]

Getting you drunk on communion wine and making you pray on your knees with my cock down your throat and the words of worship slurrily escaping your stretched out lips along with an obscene amount of your drool.

[doing-something-unholy]

How collars attach to cassocks

Plus some info on how cassocks work in general

Disclaimer: there is a ton of variation between denominations and time periods, the exact details differ slightly in some styles.

TL;DR: Depending on the priest (or the weather) it'll either be a rabat collar that only extends a few inches under the cassock, or it'll be a neckband collar attached to a shirt under the cassock.

---

Im focusing mostly on the type that would be worn with a cassock, but there are regular shirt styles too.

Option 1: A Rabat Collar.

Snaps or buttons to hold it shut in the back (and in some options, to hold it to the collar of the cassock). The one pictured also has snaps to keep the front of the cassock flush to it.

Undershirt optional it seems, because [this bishop] doesn't seem to be wearing one with his.

They also come in a variety of lengths, the shortest go under a cassock, but the longer ones can go under sweaters, suit jackets, etc.

Option 2: A Neckband Shirt

These things have so much variety and so many buttons lmao.

Some of them have the black part of the roman collar built into the shirt, others have it removable entirely.

The removable ones have buttons in the back and front that attach the collarette to the shirt, these buttons usually get hidden under the outermost layer of fabric.

These shirts can be worn by themselves in black, but if they're going under a cassock it's usually white. French cuffs are common on the white ones.

Option 3: Directly Attached?

I didn't find anything specific about this but looking at the screenshot at the very top, it appears some cassocks have button holes to attach the collar band directly. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-----

Cassocks in general:

Typically fitted like a coat in the upper half with enough extra fabric in the skirt to move freely. Using Father David Michael here because he's the first priest I could think of who wears a cassock regularly. Also, based on being able to see down his sleeve on the far left, he's wearing a rabat collar or similar.

The cincture band (called a fascia, or sometimes girdle) is two pieces: a band around the waist and the extra fabric draped over it. This one closes with velcro.

Cassocks traditionally have 33 buttons down the front, symbolic of Jesus's 33 years of life, and are supposed to be fully buttoned all the way down. (I wear mine wrong irl, only buttoned on the upper half because I cannot be assed to get them all lmao) There are 5 buttons on the cuff, symbolic of Jesus's five wounds on the cross (each hand and foot, plus the side wound). [x]

Colors: priests are all black, Monsignors have purple (magenta in my opinion) piping and buttons, and Cardinals have red piping and buttons or a fully red cassock in formal situations.

And yes, they are definitely supposed to be wearing pants under there. Unless... 😏?

[zorangezest]

ok but what if they were both kids and best friends and i was methodically shredding the canon storyline into confetti

and then they both became war criminals the end

[ohhamlet-art]

lamb

[wineanddineloseyourmind]

really strong desire to just consume the dubious potion while wearing the cursed amulet while chanting the forbidden spell while disrespecting the gods while trespassing on hallowed ground while ignoring the prophecy while breaking my promise to a witch while looking directly into the serpent’s eyes and agreeing to its dark bargain. on the off chance that i get turned into a fucked up monster