#i know i did a version of this like a year ago but i wanted to draw this ornament so bad

[mama-qwerty]

Okay, so I'm working on the next chapter of Lost and Found, and rewatched the little Master Emerald backstory scene for details.

I just noticed something.

Tails said that with the Master Emerald, "a single warrior could defeat entire armies".

Could.

That's not the same as did.

I know it's speculated that this version of what happened wasn't the full truth, as history is written by the victors and all that. So it's very likely that the owls aren't the benevolent heroes that Sonic and Tails were led to believe. And they read this account in an owl temple, which would of course make the owls out to be the good guys, and the echidna out to be the bad guys, with no gray area in between.

Now, based on game lore, we know that the echidna did go after the Master Emerald with the intention of using its power for themselves. But movie lore isn't the same, or at least isn't following the same beat-for-beat game story. So there could be some play there.

Another thing that pokes at me is the masks the echidna from all those years ago wear. They look suspiciously bird-like to me, in much the same vein as the ones Knuckles' tribe wore more recently. With the latter, you could see that as an "I'll wear the skin of my enemies to scare them in battle" kinda thing, but why would echidna from ages ago wear bird masks, if they didn't already have a beef with the owls?

So maybe the owls and echidna were already beefing, and in an attempt to either defend themselves, or end the war before more blood was shed, the echidna formed the Master Emerald. This scared the owls shitless, and they decided nuh uh, that ain't fair, and decided to remove the ME from the echidna and just hide it away, thereby doing an about face and making themselves out to be such kindly and good-hearted folks to have 'saved the galaxy' from the 'horrible danger' that the echidna presented.

Or

The owls were the ones who coerced the echidna into forming the Master Emerald in the first place.

Maybe the two species coexisted in peace for the most part, but there was a faction of the owls that wanted more. Maybe the echidna at the time were more pacifists, and content with guarding or protecting the island and gems more than anything.

Maybe there was an order of echidna that trained under the owls as warriors, under the guise of becoming better guardians for those they protected. They didn't seek power or want to conquer, they simply wanted to keep their loved ones and home safe.

But the owls took advantage of this desire, and convinced them to form the seven chaos emeralds into a single gem, one that held unimaginable power. One the owls hoped to use as a weapon, perhaps against the echidna themselves.

Once the ME was formed, it grew too powerful, too tempting for the echidna to resist, and one single echidna warrior became fused with it, possibly by accident, becoming more powerful than any before.

The owls, not wanting to fess up to being the ones who planted the idea for the echidna to do this, stepped up as the heroes of the galaxy, bravely fighting this power mad echidna for the good of all.

The echidna, feeling betrayed, now have a royal beef with the owls, and vow to retrieve what they'd been tricked into creating, and then had stolen away from them. So they truly were looking to restore their honor, because the owls had taken advantage of them, and pushed them to do something that went against their very nature and code.

I hope this makes sense, I'm just spitballing off the top of my head.

I don't know if we'll ever discover the whole truth to what happened when the ME was formed, but am certain that there's no clear good and bad in this.

[3-2-whump]

Mistaken Accusation

<prev

Well, let's get into it. Beginning of the end. Special thanks to my beta readers @whumped-by-glitter and @generic-whumperz ! Do mind the tags, and enjoy

This chapter does reference The Hit, so please skim that first if you are not already familiar with it

Author's Note: This is where shit gets real (more real, that is), and where the author may make some decisions that might not vibe with the readers. To those readers, all I will say is fanfiction is a thing, canon divergence is a thing, and I will honestly be more intrigued than mad if you end up scrapping this part and writing your own version! (Just lmk, like tag me or dm me so I can see?) But, um, yeah, onto the chapter!

TW/CW: description and mention of STD, prostitution whump, mock execution, gun violence (brief, but there), collared whumpee, bound and blindfolded whumpee, shock, emotional whump, fear of death, pissing oneself out of fear, emotional angst, degrading language, toxic relationship, manipulative whumper, possessive whumper, intimate whumper

As Khaled relieved himself in the office bathrooms near the end of the day, he hissed under his breath at the burning sensation coming out of him. That can’t be good, he thought. What would make it feel like he was passing acid or fire down there? He looked down at his dick, eyes widening a little as he saw how inflamed his urethra looked. Khaled let out a mortified little squeak. What’s wrong with my penis?

Should I tell Master? Telling his master that he suspected he’d caught something would only lead to probing questions about Khaled’s sex life, even though he wasn’t the one who had visited every whorehouse within the tristate area. Probing questions about his sex life would mean admitting that he was sleeping with Julio, and admitting that he was sleeping with Julio would only fuel his master’s possessive side and make things far worse for him. Khaled could imagine no situation in which he would come out unscathed if he told Thomas about it. So, he decided not to tell him.

He didn’t have to endure his secret for long though, because as soon as he came back into his master’s office, he could sense the energy had changed. 

“Is there something wrong, Boss?” Khaled asked nervously.

“I have just received information from our foot soldiers and informants that the motorcycle that my would-be assassin rode when he got away came from Alvarez Auto and Motorcycles, a known front of Juicio Divino,” Thomas gritted out.

Khaled’s jaw dropped as his mind slowly put together the pieces that he had in his hands all along. Of course, it was Julio, how could I be so blind?! he thought. Just over a year ago, Khaled himself approached the scrapyard assassin asking him to teach him how to kill, and had been crawling back to him in various states of distress ever since. Julio was one of two people on earth who knew how badly Thomas actually treated him, and, combined with his overprotective tendencies, Khaled mentally beat himself up for not suspecting his boyfriend sooner. 

His master’s stormy gray eyes narrowed at Khaled in a piercing glare as he pushed his tablet across the desk. “Incidentally, you have been visiting Alvarez Auto pretty frequently over the past year, haven’t you?”

Khaled’s stomach twisted in dread as he leaned in closer to read it. There, opened on his slave tracking app, was a map with pins of most-frequently visited locations he had been tracked to, and there was a damning bright red pin at the address of Julio’s garage. His mouth went dry as he opened and closed it in shock, trying to collect the right words to say as the opportunity to beg for mercy slipped through his fingers like sand. “I- Master, I- it’s not what you think-”

The older man disdainfully held up a hand, a nonverbal cue that he didn’t want to hear it. Khaled shrank in on himself. “How did you even pay for a hit against me, huh?” the boss asked. “I know you haven’t made that much money since I’ve started paying you! How could you afford to put out a hit?” His voice lowered to a growl. “Did you bend over for that cholo son of a bitch? Did you let him fuck you like I fuck you? Is that why you’ve got an infection –don’t deny it, Khaled, it hurt when I pissed this morning!”

The world seemed to stop as the air quickly left Khaled’s lungs. Wait, what? He was being accused of conspiring against his master, then of being a whore within the same breath? And to make matters worse, he somehow gave his owner an STD before he realized he had one himself? His breaths came out shallow as his body began trembling in fear. What does this mean for me? What’s going to happen to me? He nearly passed out as his imagination went wild with how severe his punishment would be. “Master, please, I had no idea-”

“Shut up!”

Khaled ceased his begging instantly, a nauseous wave of dread coiling in his stomach as he waited for his master to dole out his sentence. “You will never see anybody besides me again,” his master said, glowering at him in contempt as Khaled’s eyes widened in horror. He got up from his chair and circled around Khaled, with a familiar black shock collar and a length of chain in hand. “I’ll give you a chance to say your goodbyes before we leave.”

Khaled regained enough of his senses to shake his head and back away from the man approaching him. “But, Master, I didn’t-”

The world snapped to the right in a stinging blow as Thomas backhanded him. Khaled rubbed his sore cheek and winced in pain. “You’re lucky I don’t outright kill you, though I still might, if you keep whining like that!” he yelled. Khaled turned silent and sullen, still cradling his sore cheek as the collar tightened like a noose around his throat. “Now, come on, let’s make your final goodbyes count.” His master attached the chain leash to a notch in the shock collar and pulled Khaled towards the exit.

-

Khaled was pulled through the whole office and out to the guard shack like that, stopping periodically as his master made him explain what was going on and why he was leaving to everyone they met. Khaled’s voice was shaking like a leaf the first stop they made; by the time they made it to the guard shack, he was unable to utter anything intelligible past his tears. Nico’s jaw dropped as Thomas explained what had happened and why Khaled was never going to see him again.

“But, he didn’t do it, sir!” he objected, pushing himself out of his desk chair and standing up to face him. “He had no part in it! I can prove it, just listen to me!”

As much as Khaled wanted to interrogate that ‘I can prove it’ claim just a little more, Tom ignored him. He pulled the leash taut and yanked Khaled away. Khaled frantically pulled at the collar around his neck, emitting choked gasps as he stumbled along and struggled to keep up.

They ended up back at the car, where Tom unclipped his leash and pushed the button on the key fob to unlock the trunk of the car. Khaled was shoved up roughly against the side of the car as his hands were gathered behind his back and bound tightly by a soft and silky material, most likely a necktie. “Master, please, please, hear me out –I didn’t put a hit on you, I swear!” he once again tried to explain through a mess of snot and tears. “I don’t want to kill you, why would I want to kill you? Please –listen to me! I don’t want to kill you; I swear I didn’t know!” Thomas dragged him to the back of the car, where he stared down at him in cold fury. He took out a dark cloth from his pocket and unfolded it. Khaled preemptively opened his mouth to receive it, but then the man tied the cloth around his eyes to blind him. He quietly shut his mouth as the blindfold was tied tight enough to catch his hair. He heard the trunk of the car quietly whoosh open before he was picked up and shoved inside. The door of the trunk slammed shut, sealing him in an extra layer of darkness.

The ride seemed to stretch on forever as Khaled shivered in the darkness. It was still far too cold to be riding back there without anything to keep him warm. Throughout the darkness he begged, then screamed, then cried, then sniffled, knowing damn well his master couldn’t hear him.

Time seemed to work differently in the dark, cramped confines of a car trunk. Khaled was unsure of how much time had passed since he was shoved in the trunk, but he was more than concerned that they seemed to keep driving far longer than it usually took to get back to the apartments. He’s never going to forgive me, he realized as he rested his head onto the floor of the trunk. He really thinks I planned to kill him, and now he’s going to take me out into the woods and kill me, or do something so horrific it will make me wish I had died. A fresh round of tears soaked into his blindfold as Khaled whimpered pathetically. I don’t want to die, not like this.

Goddamnit, Julio, you tried to be the hero, and now I’m gonna end up dead in a ditch somewhere, Khaled cursed in his head.

The car rolling to a stop and faint click that preceded the trunk unlocking made Khaled’s heartrate speed up. A new wave of anxiety hit him much like the blast of midwinter air when the trunk was opened and he was pulled out. He didn’t feel concrete underneath his shoes, and the fresh icy chill of the air around him told him they weren’t in the parking garage. We really are in the woods somewhere, he thought, his hopes sinking like lead as his master’s hand gripped his elbow and steered him along to an unknown destination. He’s really driven me out to the woods somewhere to kill me. Khaled stumbled as his foot hit an unseen obstruction, but his master dragged him along regardless. This is it. I’m gonna die. His breaths started picking up, heart racing as that last thought worked him up into another nervous state. His owner stopped and threw him forward onto the ground. Khaled landed face first into a cold and wet patch of snow, judging on how it felt when it absorbed his impact. “Get up and kneel.” Khaled’s breaths stopped in his throat. There was no room in his master’s frigid tone for argument. He pushed himself up the best he could with his hands bound behind his back, shivering not just from the cold as he assumed a kneeling position.

A cold, metallic object pressed against the back of the young man’s skull. “If you’ve got anything to say, say it now,” his master’s voice said behind him. A wet and warm spot began to soak his pants in the front. Khaled’s mind went blank. He was so scared he nearly forgot his owner had asked for his last words. He caught his trembling lip between his teeth before shaking his head. Whatever he could say for his last words would go unheeded anyway, lost in the winter’s chill and the indifferent New England woods. He hung his head in resignation, ready for the explosive pain followed by sudden oblivion and nothingness, or whatever it was that lie ahead.

He had at least hoped he would see his father’s face before the end. But the only image his shielded eyes could conjure up before he died was a pair of sharp, steel gray eyes.

Click.

Nothing happened.

The gun lowered, and heavy footsteps crunched in the snow as his would-be executioner walked around to the front of him.

Khaled was still alive. Somehow, he was still alive. There was a light brush of hands reaching behind his head before the blindfold fell away, revealing a familiar face staring down at him with those same steel gray eyes. Khaled’s breath shimmered in the cold moonlit night. He was alive. He wasn’t going to die. He was alive.

All the fear and tension left his body like his vaporous breath in the night as he slumped forward, crying tears of relief into his master’s shoulder as he caught him. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,” he sobbed between each breath.

“Shhh, shhh, it’s alright, it’s alright,” Thomas soothed as he reached behind Khaled to untie his hands. “I believe you for now, it’s alright.” As soon as his hands were free, Khaled wrapped them around the older man’s neck, hugging him close as he bawled into his shoulder. “I thought about it, but there is no way I can definitively prove it was you.” A muscular pair of arms wrapped around him and held him close, drawing him into the warmth. “And besides, my favorite fuck toy, plotting to kill me?” His master laughed. “No way you’re smart enough for that! I didn’t buy you for your brains, you know!”

“Yes, yes, I’m stupid, I am so fucking stupid, thank you!” Khaled cried. He nuzzled his cold wet face into Tom’s warm neck and peppered the man’s jawline with kisses, murmuring his gratitude between every kiss. He was alive, he didn’t die, and that was the only thing that mattered in that moment.

“Let’s go home,” Thomas said, hoisting Khaled onto his feet. “The takeout I bought is getting cold, and you need a change of pants.”

He led the young man through the woods back to side of the road where he had parked his car. “I was completely serious about you never seeing anybody else again, by the way,” he reminded him as he opened the passenger side door. Khaled slid gratefully inside, happy to be in the heated part of the car. “You are relieved of your duties to the organization from now on,” Tom continued as he joined him on the driver’s side, “You are demoted to domestic service. You will stay at home and keep the penthouse spotless, welcoming me to it every evening with warm food and your warmer body. You will stay in the apartment and not leave for anything unless it is with me or a trusted associate. You will never see anybody again. That’ll keep you from conspiring to kill me, or from spreading your legs for anyone else but me, and only I will decide when it’s time to bring you back out again.” He pushed the button and started up the vehicle, setting the heaters to full blast.

Khaled nodded. What did he care about being stuck at home and never seeing anybody again? He was alive, and right now, as he held his freezing fingers close to the vents, that was all that mattered.

Le Tag List: @kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee @generic-whumperz @bamber344 @there-will-always-be-blood @morning-star-whump @a-la-whump @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees @defire

[hauntingblue]

Gear 5 luffy's laugh is so contagious I just hear the drums and go insane how does this work. What did he do to me

[achairwithapandaonit]

anywayyyy i loved the toymaker i hope people write gay ass fanfic of him and the doctor

[reticent-fate]

part 11/26ish

anyone remember those scales with the springs in 'em? all i ever see these days are digital scales but those things made the best noises. i think i've seen some kitchen scales that still use spring mechanisms, but it's been a while.

technology is weird.

from the beginning

[crossbackpoke-check]

about to be sooo nosy so. my apologies. but. morgan frost? girlfriend? do share (or don’t! again this is so nosy i’m sorry)

for legal purposes i can neither confirm nor deny anything about morgan and his girlfriend but afaik i think he’s single right now? at one point (within the past four years 😭) he did for sure have a girlfriend and that is the extent of my wag knowledge

[came0dust]

i cannot keep drawing this dude on my phone but god do i love drawing him (+ bonus colors)

[southernvampire]

uterus has been yeeterused

[not-poignant]

When I found FFS last year I was in the middle of learning what foods I could tolerate while trying to address GI tract issues. It was a long and scary process. I lost a lot of weight, and it felt like any time I ate anything it would trigger symptoms. FFS was the first and only time I've seen that experience in a story, and it was such a comfort to have that while I was struggling.

Efnisien's condition is different than mine, but some things he went through were very close to my own experiences, like how eating coused symptoms and not eating just did the same thing. Him looking at a hamburger and not seeing food, but something that would hurt.

I'm doing so much better now. I can go days without being in pain. I can eat full meals without triggering symptoms, and when I do have symptoms I have a good guess as to why. I'm gaining weight back, and I'm in a position to help my Dad with his changing diet.

I ate a cupcake for the first time in over a year and it didn't hurt.

I love FFS for so many reasons and I just wanted to thank you for working so hard on it and for being so generous.

Hi hi hi anon,

Firstly, *sad high fives* and lots of solidarity for the GI issues. I have my own to deal with and they're a pain. (Literally!)

I think it's really frightening in the beginning because not only do you have the literal pain / agony to deal with, and the fatigue, and the disruption, you also have the added 'bonus' of not knowing exactly what's causing the issue/s. I remember I got screened for so much stuff, including cancer, and each time a test came back negative, eventually I was left with a diagnosis of 'idk just try not to be stressed I guess' (ironic, because I have literally a severe stress disorder - PTSD).

There's some relief in the days you can eat and it's less painful, or you have a meal, and there's no cramps. I wish more and more days like that for you anon, more days you get to look back and the pain becomes a memory, and not a constant threat.

This stuff is hard, there's very few things as foundational as eating, and disorders that mess with it are the worst. I'm both like... glad I could write someone like Efnisien for catharsis reasons, but also relieved that instead of folks telling me it's disgusting that I wrote about like, him having diarrhea, there's been people instead being like 'honestly same, this sucks, but it's good to know it's not just me.'

It's definitely not just you, anon, and it sucks that this stuff is often a lot more taboo to talk about than say, having the flu, or asthma. And that makes sense, but it still makes it isolating and lonely!

Anyway, I'm very glad you like FFS, and in the meantime, may you have more and more and more times where food is gentle to you! <3333

[emulation-0]

its so odd thinking back to my life a few years ago compared to now

[meistoshi]

due to personal reasons (being on undercover brainrot) am once again thinking abt my frontier n badend verses coz in both satoshi takes a more active interest in working to protect various regions & more purposefully offers assistance when he hears about troubles, the only main difference in that regard between the verses being that frontier still sees him travel for the thrill of it & not quite seeking out trouble while badend sees him travel almost primarily To look for troubles to solve

[grasshoppergeography]

Hey All,

I've been away for some time, as we've been working really hard on something quite exciting:

let me present to you the world's first ever global ocean drainage basin map that shows all permanent and temporary water flows on the planet.

This is quite big news, as far as I know this has never been done before. There are hundreds of hours of work in it (with the data + manual work as well) and it's quite a relief that they are all finished now.

But what is an ocean drainage basin map, I hear most of you asking? A couple of years ago I tried to find a map that shows which ocean does each of the world's rivers end up in. I was a bit surprised to see there is no map like that, so I just decided I'll make it myself - as usual :) Well, after realizing all the technical difficulties, I wasn't so surprised any more that it didn't exist. So yeah, it was quite a challenge but I am very happy with the result.

In addition to the global map I've created a set of 43 maps for different countries, states and continents, four versions for each: maps with white and black background, and a version for both with coloured oceans (aka polygons). Here's the global map with polygons:

I know from experience that maps can be great conversation starters, and I aim to make maps that are visually striking and can effectively deliver a message. With these ocean drainage basin maps the most important part was to make them easily understandable, so after you have seen one, the others all become effortless to interpret as well. Let me know how I did, I really appreciate any and all kinds of feedback.

Here are a few more from the set, I hope you too learn something new from them. I certainly did, and I am a geographer.

The greatest surprise with Europe is that its biggest river is all grey, as the Volga flows into the Caspian sea, therefore its basin counts as endorheic.

An endorheic basin is one which never reaches the ocean, mostly because it dries out in desert areas or ends up in lakes with no outflow. The biggest endorheic basin is the Caspian’s, but the area of the Great Basin in the US is also a good example of endorheic basins.

I love how the green of the Atlantic Ocean tangles together in the middle.

No, the dividing line is not at Cape Town, unfortunately.

I know these two colours weren’t the best choice for colourblind people and I sincerely apologize for that. I’ve been planning to make colourblind-friendly versions of my maps for ages now – still not sure when I get there, but I want you to know that it’s just moved up on my todo-list. A lot further up.

Minnesota is quite crazy with all that blue, right? Some other US states that are equally mind-blowing: North Dakota, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming. You can check them all out here.

Yes, most of the Peruvian waters drain into the Atlantic Ocean. Here are the maps of Peru, if you want to take a closer look.

Asia is amazingly colourful with lots of endorheic basins in the middle areas: deserts, the Himalayas and the Caspian sea are to blame. Also note how the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra are divided.

I mentioned earlier that I also made white versions of all maps. Here’s Australia with its vast deserts. If you're wondering about the weird lines in the middle: that’s the Simpson desert with its famous parallel sand dunes.

North America with white background and colourful oceans looks pretty neat, I think.

Finally, I made the drainage basin maps of the individual oceans: The Atlantic, the Arctic, the Indian and the Pacific. The Arctic is my favourite one.

I really hope you like my new maps, and that they will become as popular as my river basin maps. Those have already helped dozens of environmental NGOs to illustrate their important messages all around the world. It would be nice if these maps too could find their purpose.

[that-crazy-five-foot-two-chick]

Look Chan I know we've all been single for a while here but I don't think you understand the concept of Valentine's Day

[713-4th-ward-g]

.

[artfulstar]

Woah woah woah. Twitter is shutting down in Brasil? I'm thankful for your mental health but what?

Yep.

TLDR: Elon fired everyone in the Brazilian offices of twitter but legally Twitter can't continue existing in Brazil WITHOUT a legal representative. So now our Federal Supreme Court subpoened him to apoint a new representative or the website is getting shut down in the country

The long version with the context about the fight:

It all started when the supreme court started to shut down in the country profiles of brazilian people who had commited crimes using the website (an example is Monark, a dude who literally used his profile to say we should give n*zis and racists unlimited freedom of speech [he fled to the US to escape prison btw]).

Elon caught wind of this and decided to threaten our constitution and said that he would get the profiles back on because he wouldn't accept a government restricting "freedom of speech" on his platform. The supreme court issued a statement that if he did that, he would face a fee everyday for every account reactivated. It was money so he didn't do that (or maybe turns out he couldn't do it anyway and he was just lying for his lil fanboys).

This was all back at the start of the year but suddenly almost two weeks ago it was reported he fired every single employee in the offices of brazil, including the legal representative.

Then tonight, around two hours ago the official profile of STF replied and tagged elon with the doc of the subpoena because since they didn't have a legal representative, they couldn't do it in the proper way. The subpoena says that Elon has 24 hours to appoint a new guy for the job or the social is getting shut down in brazilian territory.

So we have 3 options for whats gonna happen in the next 24 hours:

Alexandre de Moraes (The guy who Elon started a one-sided beef with) backs down and doesnt shut down the website (highly unlikely)

Elon backs down and appoints a new guy so he doesnt lose the 4th biggest public of his site

Twitter gets shut down until Elon's manchild's ego gives in

thats all <3

Edit:

This was Elon's reply to the tweet. YES he is pathetic like that

Edit 2: it's currently 17:38 brasilia time of 30/08 and Twitter is bound to get disconnected soon, the order has been given by Moraes. People who use a VPN to access Twitter will get fined 50k reais (almost 9k dollars).

Yesterday a note was posted lying about Brazil being a dictatorship and saying that one of the people being censored is a 16yr old girl. The truth is that it's a grown ass man that use his daughters account to promote attacks on delegates, ministers, judges and other politicians. They also call orders to ban n*zi accounts "illegal orders" (WHICH ARE VERY LEGAL UNDER THE CONSTITUTION OF BRAZIL). They also say "we don't want every other country to have the freedom of speech laws the US has" meanwhile they've been trying to impose them in a sovereign state.

I would say what I want to say to Elon but unfortunately my mother taught me to keep those kinds of thoughts inside. Just know they're three letters <3

edit 3: twitter was officially unavailable on brazilian territory by the time it struck midnight of the 31st

Edit 4:

Translation: 🚨 NOW: Elon Musk is looking for executives to represent Twitter/X in Brazil, to negotiate the platform's RETURN in the country, reports Correio Braziliense.

he's going to do what cellbit said kkkmk he purposely let them suspend it, then after a few days he'll come out and be the savior of the brazilian people and say he only did it for us

Don't let elon fool you. He doesn't care and is probably only doing it because his investors are threatening him with money

[micer2012]

a reflection on MatPat's plagiarism

Hello, my name is Della, or micer2012, and 2 years ago Game Theory plagiarized three Tumblr posts of mine, making a video that now holds almost 6 million views.

My posts explaining his plagiarism made their rounds on Reddit, Tumblr and Twitter, but despite the Hermits and Pooka commenting on it (generally in support of me or saying they don’t know enough details about the situation to say either way), MatPat and his team have never owned up to anything, and no mention of my name is present on the video. The one Reddit post they made denying it (which was made before my detailed takedown, which they have never responded to (though the mods on the r/GameTheorists Reddit were kind and made sure it stayed up)) didn’t even mention me by name, just referring to me as “a tumblr user”. (Though one of the screenshotted comments in the body of the post does say my name)

This experience was baffling, but it’s overall had a positive impact on my life. r/Hermitcraft gave me a Golden Apple Award (post of the year, 2021). My inbox was filled with excited fans, wanting to ask me questions or pose their own theories, far more than the hate I got. (Though the hate I got from Game Theory fans was VERY funny. I wondered why none of them gave me shit about saying “MatPat misgendered Evil Xisuma” before realizing none of them read that far into the post.)

And getting on a more personal, and much more important note, I met most of my current online friends through this, including my partner. It helped me grow closer with my irl friends as well and gave me an entertaining story that I tell whenever I have the chance. It was one of the first things in my life that really made me feel like my talents, my autistic hyperfocusing and analyzing of things I love, could be valuable. Useful. Exploitable. It blew my mind that MatPat thought an autistic kid’s ramblings about a Minecraft Youtube joke character were good enough to steal. To put an audible sponsorship on. To get 6 million views off of.

And that’s why I’m writing this post, this update years later. As you might’ve been able to guess, Hbomberguy’s Youtube video on plagiarism reopened this wound. It was really hard for me to sit through, it took days of pausing and taking breaks, because I had experienced everything he was talking about firsthand. 

In my 10 page long takedown post, I wrote about how his rewording of my sentences made him say things that were incorrect, just like Filip did. The content farm production style that made big companies like Cinemassacre take one creator (AVGN/MatPat) and turn him and his content into a brand, a voice that reads out scripts by other people with other opinions/theories, is a history shared with Game Theory. What really hit me was Harris talking about how big creators only do this to people they think they can get away with doing it to. How they view their victims as lesser, as not deserving of their words, repackaging them as their own to give to an audience that can gain from hearing them, but deserves better than to have to listen to the original victim.

That’s the thing, I 100% think a video version of my theory to expose to a bigger community than “Evil Xisuma Fans on Tumblr” is a great idea!! Near the end of the video Harris talks about how video adaptations of things could be a great market, even an accessibility tool, and I completely feel that about my posts. I wrote them quickly assuming the reader was someone well versed on Evil Xisuma lore, after not even watching most of the CarnEvil series, and the diagrams I made to explain them are even less comprehensible. Harris makes a joke that I completely agree with, 

“I’m sure some of my videos would do very well if someone translated them into English.”

I don’t think I would’ve ever made my posts if I didn’t have autism, and a special fixation on Evil Xisuma and Hermitcraft. I made them because I felt the character was being done an injustice, and because I wanted to share with other superfans this theory that might explain it away. I do think that MatPat plagiarizing me was ableist. I used to wonder a lot if this would’ve happened if my posts were articulated better, if they had been peer reviewed, if the posts themselves had been spread to a wider audience before MatPat made his video. At one point when the discourse was fresh (before I had the time to write out my 10 page rebuttal), a bigger YouTuber (100k subs at the time) messaged me and started talking on Discord, interested in possibly making a video on the discourse, but I think my style of typing and general enthusiasm drove him away. You can tell by a single look at my blog (or my original 3 posts!) that I don’t usually type like this. This post you’re reading now has been peer reviewed and edited, and took me hours to format correctly. That video could’ve been huge, the entire outcome of this MatPat situation would probably be much different.

I also used to stress a lot about “being the one who ruined Evil Xisuma’s story”. If you didn’t know, to me S8 Evil Xisuma’s story got wrapped up pretty quickly and unsatisfying (in my personal autistic opinion). (though this might’ve been due to s8 being experimental and ending early with moon big) There was no real culmination of the plot points and arcs going on, and I don’t want to blame myself, but when Xisuma said on stream (when the MatPat thing was first going on) that he didn’t want to focus on the discourse or draw more attention to it, it makes a lot of sense to me that he just wanted to wrap it all up as quickly as possible. For a while I beat myself up about it, of ruining the story of this character I love, but it’s not my fault. If anyone’s, it’s MatPats, but I don’t think it’s useful to just blame someone else. That’s how the story ended up going, and that’s fine. This is Evil Xisuma we’re talking about, their inconsistent lore is what made them such an interesting character. And notably, Pooka made an animation with an awesome culmination of Jeff, the Dreamer, Evil Xisuma, and his own sona’s story, and it makes me so happy to watch. Whatever Pooka does is of course his own choice, but I’m glad he got to give this personal story his own ending (if it is an ending, and not just the start of a new chapter!). 

Typing this all out and getting it off my chest has made me feel a lot better. For a while I wanted to make my OWN video essay about Evil Xisuma’s lore and CarnEvil’s lore, actually going episode by episode to explain it instead of just assuming you knew as much about Evil Xisuma as I did. That idea is still not off the table, but MCYT isn’t something I’m that into right now. Maybe if something else comes out about Evil Xisuma I’ll get back on it, but for now I’m fine with letting that go. But I want to make other videos, share other theories and analysis… if I have the freetime I’d love to make YouTube videos, and if I don’t have the time I’ll continue posting to my tumblr and infodumping to my friends. Apparently my infodumping is valuable enough “content” to steal! Writing this out has made me feel a lot better though, I’m really glad I got it out.

If anyone ever wants to talk to me about the things I’m obsessed with, or reach out to me as a source in a bigger discussion about Game Theory or other channels, my inbox is more than welcome :] Thank you for reading! 

Sincerely, a tumblr user.