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lezbrarian · 5 months

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Title: Come On Down To The Lavender Luck Lounge

**Alright, I made a post already with the proper embedded AO3 version, but in case people are not into that ... idk this is my first go around of this ... I'll also make it a text post here as well. I did it -- I wrote some casino AU fanfic inspired by these outfits, in which Dan is a stuffy dry accounting manager and Phil is the owner of the casino. Thank you @dapg-otmebytheballs for the additional inspiration with your tags! And thank you to the anon who provided me with the name of the casino!

***

Title: Come On Down To The Lavender Luck Lounge

Rating:

Mature

Relationships:

Dan Howell/Phil Lester

Dan Howell & Phil Lester

Summary:

Gay Casino AU: Mr. Philip Lester is the suave, flamboyant owner of a queer casino and resort, Lavender Luck Lounge. Mr. Daniel Howell is the uptight and dry accounting manager for the casino. This fic was inspired by the outfits from these videos, respectively: Daniel's: (Dystopia Daily: Dan and Phil Finally Tell the Truth) Philip's: (DAPG: Roasting Our Own Red Carpet Fashion)

Notes:

This is a work in progress. It may become longer; I may leave it at this. It's just something I was inspired to write after I saw a post on tumblr with the outfits mentioned above. I'm not sure what the plot is or will be, I just wanted to play around in this gay casino alternate universe and see where it takes these characters. Speaking of which, I'll make an obligatory disclaimer. This is a piece of fiction merely inspired by the online personas of Dan and Phil to create these characters and universe. This is not speculating on the real personal lives of Dan or Phil, and I very much do not want this to be sent to Dan/Phil in any way. So please don't do that. So far the story is not explicit/graphic, but I chose to mark this as mature as it's going to feature themes of drinking, smoking, sex and "adult" language by nature of being set in a casino.

*** The casino was buzzing. The gaudy abundance of neon-light up signs were emitting a baseline hum, always there comfortingly familiar. This alone could barely be heard over the rest of the noise that almost always populated the place. The ding! and shing sha-shing cartoon cash sound effects of the slot machines. An occasional male voice over of JACKPOT or WINNER! Then there was the sloshed singles clamoring for the bartenders’ attention at the multiple themed bars. There were the slightly out-of-place yet confident bachelorette parties of straight woo girls. They shrieked and giggled and stiletto-stumbled their way around the casino in large packs. There were the dealers whose voices cut through the chaos with practice. Notes of brassy jazz or Kim Petras might float off the performers’ stages out to the main floor during burlesque or drag shows, respectively. Then of course the cacophony of having so many people in one room, endless conversations converging together into one collective murmur.

On days like this, there was all that buzz, and then some. Because today the rumor that the owner would be here was once again stirring. It didn’t matter that Mr. Lester dropped in frequently, as a very hands-on owner of the casino and resort hotel attached. Nearly every employee lost it each time this frequent rumor spread through the halls, acting as if someone had said an A-list celebrity would be visiting the casino. Employees scrambled and preened and eagerly awaited Mr. Lester’s arrival. That was just about every employee would. There was at least one person who absolutely refused to participate in what he referred to as “juvenile gossip and infatuation.” This would be the accounting manager, Mr. Howell. He mostly hid away in his office, the only place in the casino void of the “tacky” neon lights and oh-so-80s casino furniture and carpeting. Daniel’s office was the only place Mr. Lester had relinquished control on décor. Daniel had claimed he couldn’t work “like this” with a sweeping gesture to the main lobby as Philip had toured him around on the day of his interview. Philip couldn’t help feeling slightly impressed perhaps at the nerve to diss his casino before he was even hired. Plus Daniel was good for the job. He didn’t need the accountant to love casino life. He needed him to love numbers. And Phil would never admit it out loud, but any time he ventured into Mr. Howell’s office, it did provided a much-needed relief to his senses.

In here, there was almost silence and there was a break from the strong smell of pina colada and smoke. Mr. Lester would never allow cigarettes inside, but there was a classy cigar lounge and the smoke clung to clothes and then subsequently, crushed velvet seat cushions and thick carpet fibers. Daniel’s office was meticulously tidy and organized. Uncluttered. As opposed to the neon and flashing lights, and led strips that lined the hallways and floorboards out there – in here there were just soft warm lamps, maybe an open blind. The only smells a fresh inoffensive candle or the faintest hint of Daniel’s aftershave. The floor was an almost sterile white tile, if it weren’t for the rest of the décor in nearly all black to balance it out. One accent wall was painted black too, and the others a nice off-white. A few plants draped their leaves dramatically over bookshelves or the side of his desk. It was ridiculous and unnecessary but it was Daniel’s office and his own money out of his pocket – the desk housed a modern desktop computer, but also an old-fashioned calculator and huge yellowing-white computer from the ‘90s complete with a clacky keyboard. His desk was otherwise cleared, any important documents and office supplies organized neatly in drawers. There were some tasteful books on bookshelves, which Philip guessed were chosen more for their spines and color than their content. The important documents and useful books were tucked away in filing cabinets. And of course it was still a casino, so Phil’s only influence in the room (or so Daniel let Philip believe) was the occasional gold accent piece here or there.

No matter how many times Mr. Howell indicated his complete disinterest in these frequent announcements that Mr. Lester was coming with a flat monotone “alright” or “and?” – one of the youngest and most flamboyant employees would flit into his office on their OMG he’s coming! casino tour. It certainly seemed to be more about the message-bearer than any actual response to this delivery of news, as they never skipped Daniel’s office on this rumor tour.

***

Daniel’s office door rattled closed and quickly as it had been flung open. He felt his skull rattle in its frame the same way the door rattled in its own. He sighed. He didn’t bother even giving the messenger a response today. He thinks it was Felix, one of the servers for the drag shows. But it was hard to keep track of them all, especially when he spent most of his time tucked away in this office, only to be interrupted for moments like these.

Each time someone opened his door – the casino seemed to seep into his office, his sanctuary. He swore he could smell cheap perfume and well liquor. And when he blinked the led lights of the hallway were still in his vision. He closed his eyes and rubbed at them and then his temples, attempting to regain the focus and flow he’d been in before.

Plenty of the employees and even people in Daniel’s personal life wondered why on earth he took this job, if he seemed to detest it so much. He seemed so bothered with the casino atmosphere, so why this job? Well Philip had promised him he really could just stay behind this desk, not dealing with anything other than the numbers, the input and output of money. He would have the occasional meeting, and other than that he could live in his own little world crunching numbers, completely hyper-focused and zoned out from the casino world. Calculate this, manage that. Something to keep his hands and mind busy, and the thoughts out. Of course he’d worked other types of money management and accounting jobs. But he was always being dragged into other areas of business, managing employees. And that always really meant managing other people’s emotions, which he was not in the business of. Plus there were not many places he could merge his queer identity and his money management. He absolutely despised the jobs he’d worked on Wall Street, with fratty finance bros in their polos and khakis or drab blue suits and crisp baby blue button-ups. Yeah, that was not for him. The Lavender Luck Lounge casino aesthetic might have swung entirely too far in the other direction for him, but at least he was not expected to fist bump and contribute to heterosexual male small talk here. Sure it was flashy and tacky and way, way too colorful. But the workplace was ostensibly queer. The bartenders, servers, dealers, and bouncers were an impressive and intimidating mix of cool tattooed lesbians, big burly bears, adorable flamboyant twinks, nonbinary hotties with names like Twig, and the list could go on and on. There was an incredibly talented and diverse cast of drag queens and burlesque performers. All the employees were encouraged to be themselves and dress how they felt comfortable. Yes, Daniel found this place to be overstimulating and frankly gaudy for his own taste, but he would take that any day over a boring cookie cutter cubicle where he had to dress the same as every other man in the building.

Daniel was having a hard time getting back into his focus after Felix, or had it been Striker, had flung their long braids over their shoulder and bounced out of the room. He couldn’t get their damn singsongy Mr. Leeeeester is coooomiiiing! out of his head, like an annoying ear worm of a song. He sat up straight at his computer. Though Philip had made sure to have his desk and chair measured for ergonomics, Daniel found himself slouching at it frequently. At 6’3” he was just use to slouching and hunching at most desks. He fussed with his blazer, which was black with a thin white gird pattern today. He liked to dress well for the job, fashionable but nothing too flashy. He had never asked if there was a dress code, but Mr. Lester had also never provided him with a set of rules or dress code either. Judging from the range of casual to full on costume-garb among the other employees – he was pretty sure he could wear just about anything to work and it would be fine. But like his office, he preferred a style that was well-kempt, chic, lowkey but stylish. And it was almost always black and white head to toe. Today he let the blazer be the focus, with a fitted grey shirt underneath and the blazer open. He paired black slacks that tapered and revealed the ankle. To be fair this is how he had to wear most slacks at his height, unless he shopped at Big and Tall, which he most certainly did not. But he didn’t mind – the tapered ankle-showing look was in as far as he could tell. He wore a sensible but expensive sock and a shiny black loafer. The only bit of accessorizing he ever did was one small hoop earring on one side, which he’d had since his days in college, and a fancy silver watch which he’d acquired once he graduated and made some Wall Street money. In fact, it was one bit of his daily outfit from those days that he’d kept in the rotation. He’d tossed most of his ties, finding them stuffy – plus they reminded him of his all-boys-school uniform days. Not great memories there. His outfit today was fairly similar to what he wore most days, and it seemed Mr. Lester had no problem with it. In fact, he’d even give Daniel an occasional “looking snazzy, Howell.” Daniel dressed with the goal that nobody on the street would look at him and think that guy works in a casino. Daniel thought Mr. Lester dressed like he must want every person on planet earth to know he owned a casino. He often barely managed to be out of eye sight of Philip before he rolled his eyes at whatever flashy thing Philip had donned that day.

He'd had his eyes closed for quite some time. Still gently rubbing the bridge of his nose and his temples. Before he knew it, his door was being knocked on and flung open before he could answer “come in” again.

“I know he’s com—”

“Who’s coming, Mr. Howell?” Philip asked and Daniel swore he heard an ounce of amusement, perhaps innuendo in his voice?

“Not me – I mean, never mind doesn’t matter. Hi, I thought you were someone else.” Oh, god. He wasn’t the most social person, but he’d like to be able to at least perform these standard social interactions without completely fumbling.

“Okie dokie” Phil said sincerely. Daniel was sure he was the only person in the world who could pull off that phrase without an ounce of sarcasm. “Well I’m sorry to disappoint you that I’m not someone else, but I just dropped by to remind you about our meeting later today!”

Daniel is positive Philip never mentioned this meeting, but this was par for the casino owener’s course. He worked hard, and ultimately ran a tight ship. He made his employees genuinely happy and actually cared about how they were doing. He was a good hands-on owner. He was charming and whip smart too, with innovative ideas and solutions. But he was a total fucking scatterbrain. His office, not unlike the stark difference between Daniel’s and his stylistic choices in clothing, was the exact opposite of Daniel’s. Where Dan’s desk was tidy, uncluttered, a sleek black desk with a piece of green-tinted glass over it – there was virtually no way of knowing what color or nearly even where Philip’s desk was in his office. His office might as well not have a desk or shelves since you couldn’t see them anyway under the piles and piles of loose papers, notebooks, post-it-notes and knick-knacks. In Phil’s office, the aesthetic of the casino and resort certainly bled over. There were neon light-up signs in here too – one large one read Here, Queer, I Can Always Lend an Ear! – and there was a plasma ball and definitely more than one lava lamp. The office was slightly more pastel, softer compared to the deep reds and purples of the customer-facing areas of the Lavender Luck Lounge. But this man was born to own a casino. Daniel had no doubt this would not be far off from how Philip’s actual house was decorated. He didn’t know how Mr. Lester found anything at all in here, let alone keep track of anything truly important. It was no wonder he was lucky to get even a notice about a meeting earlier in the day. Daniel preferred plenty of notice, meetings written down in his perfect color-coded calendar weeks in advance. But he was used to this part of the job by this point. And everything else ran pretty smoothly, especially since all important financial documents came straight to his own office. So he was willing to let it slide that meetings often came with little to no warning. And, though he would never admit it, a little change of environment and routine was nice every now and then. Sometimes they would meet in Phil’s office. But there were conference rooms in the resort they would use sometimes as well.

“Does that work for you?” Philip asked.

Fuck. He had stopped paying attention again.

“Hmm.. what’s working for me?”

“The … time? For the meeting?” Philip didn’t seem annoyed, but maybe even a bit concerned. “You alright, Daniel? You seem distracted.”

Shit. He couldn’t possibly ask Philip to repeat the time again. Too embarrassing. No, he’d have to bribe a bartender or someone to go subtly ask Mr. Lester if he had a meeting later that day, and the get the time from them.

“Yes! Works for me,” Daniel answered with too much enthusiasm now.

Philip turned then, his heeled boots making a nice loud click-clack against the tile in his office. In this entire interaction Daniel had barely actually looked at Philip. His boots were shiny black snakeskin (Daniel assumed it was faux, but expensive nonetheless), and they had a modest heel that gave Philip an extra two or three inches to his already tall height of 6’2”. He was wearing slacks very similar to Dan’s --- tapered nicely at the ankle above his boots. But on second glance, Philip’s were a deep, deep red beyond red wine or burgundy – appearing almost black at first. And his shirt – it was a silky long-sleeve button down. The shirt was more of a cherry red with an abstract black water color stripey effect. And he had the first few buttons undone, exposing his pale chest and a surprising amount of dark chest hair for an otherwise clean shaven man. He was sporting a delicate gold chain necklace as well. He certainly looked like he owned a casino, more so than usual even. His looks often leaned a bit more flashy, sparkly even. But today – he was looking almost, dare someone say, sleazy? But in a swanky and suave way still, somehow, he was pulling it all off.

Before Philip closed the door and left, he leaned back into the doorframe.

“I like that blazer, Howell. You should wear that one more often.”

Daniel was certainly not oblivious to what was so charming about Mr. Lester, or why he seemed to have an entire casino’s worth of employees wrapped around his finger.

And without a response, Philip closed the door behind him. Daniel could still hear his heels clicking down the hallway, until he reached the carpeted main floor.

***

#dnp #dnp fanfic #dnp fanfiction #dan and phil #dan and phil fanfic #dan and phil fanfiction #au #casino au #dnp DNI !!!!! please !#my writing

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bookgeekgrrl · 8 months

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My media this week (1-7 Oct 2023)

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

🙂 Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe (Phil Plait, author & narrator) - The Bad Astronomer paints pictures of what the sky would look like standing on the surface of other planets, asteroids, etc.

😊 Initiation (Sex Wizards #1) (Alethea Faust) - erotic BDSM fantasy - actually a bit more plot & worldbuilding than I was expecting tbh, entertaining

😞 Miss Aldridge Regrets (Canary Club Mystery #1) (Louise Hare, author; Georgina Campbell, narrator) - This isn't a mystery the MC investigates, it's a mystery that happens TO her. She was tediously passive, seeming really rather naïve & foolish (esp given her age and life experience) and entirely in denial about pretty much everything that happens to her (since she's being actively framed for murder). However, the very short interval chapters from the killer's perspective did hook my interest and left me genuinely curious about the mystery. At about 44% I jumped to the end to see how the mystery resolved. I'm counting it as read since I did read over 50% of it.

😍 A Most Agreeable Murder (Julia Seales, author; Fiona Hampton, narrator) - comical pastiche/parody mashup of: Jane Austen (specifically), regency-set/gothic novels (in general) & Agatha Christie/country house mysteries - funny & entertaining, deftly done. Very Nightmare Abbey vibes in the absolute best way. I enjoyed all the caricature characters but 'overlooked tedious (but secretly a [redacted]) sister' Mary was my fave, absolute gothic queen

💖💖 +94K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

I'm dating the least inquisitive man in Ottawa (GlitterCity) - Rachel Reid's Game Changers: Troy Barrett/Harris Drover (but really mostly gen), 4K - cute, really nailed the character voices

Tinder Is the Night (rohkeutta) - MCU: stucky, 6K - hilarious, forever fave [reread]

Stay (fandomfluffandfuck) - MCU: stucky, 31K - silver fox/old guard Dom Steve subbing for newbie Dom Bucky - great character voices, hot af sex!

bitten hand guides best (frankoceansmoonriver) - The Witcher: Geraskier, 33K - lovely little fic with werewolf!Jaskier & witcher Geralt

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

Make Some Noise - s2, e1

Dirty Laundry - s3, e2

Only Murders In The Building - s3, e10

Deadloch - s1, e1-8

Our Flag Means Death - s2, e1-3

D20: Burrow's End - "The Red Warren" (s20, e1)

D20: Adventuring Party - "Stoatal Recall" (s15, e1)

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

Re: Dracula - October 1: Not My Own Master In The Matter

Welcome to Night Vale #235 - Book Club

What Next: TBD - Inside Crypto's House of Cards

Re: Dracula - October 2: Play for the Stake of Human Souls

⭐ The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Searching for Squids with Dr. Sarah McAnulty

Ed Zitron's 15 Minutes In Hell - Episode 9 - David Roth

Re: Dracula - October 3: The Holiest Love

Into It - Tech Bros Laid the Foundation, but Women Built Social Media

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Enchanted Woods

Switched on Pop - In Defense of Crunk

Re: Dracula - October 4: It Is Like Death

Vibe Check - Freedom, Cut Me Loose!

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Baobab Fare

⭐ Shedunnit - Agatha and Plum

Twenty Thousand Hertz+ - Wilhelm Scream Remix

⭐ Song Exploder - Alvvays "Archie, Marry Me"

Re: Dracula - October 5: Baptism of Blood

Today, Explained - Caste away

Re: Dracula - October 6: My Affairs of Earth

Dear Prudence - My Girlfriend Is Always Late! Help!

Endless Thread - Find A Grave: Social Media Icon

Into It - Are Bed Bugs and Katy Perry Out for Blood?

Today, Explained - Who shot ya, Tupac?

Switched on Pop - Metro Boomin Wants Some More

ICYMI - Stop Snitching on Main

⭐ One Year - 1955: The Hiroshima Maidens

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

Troubadours From the Tribe

Alternative Radio • 2000s

Foundations of Metal

Rob Zombie Radio • 2000s • Familiar

Metal Radio • 1980s

Manowar Radio

"Give It Away" [RHCP] Radio • Familiar

Stand And Deliver: The Very Best of Adam & The Ants {1999}

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olderthannetfic · 2 years

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Your posts about Rhodey/Tony and slash and black Only Sane Men best friends made me think of American Gods, the series with Ricky Whittle as Shadow. Haven't actually watched season 3 yet, and I also haven't interacted with the fandom in a good while, but I remember that back when season one had just dropped, there were lots of Shadow/Mad Sweeney shippers.

I think many people find Only Sane Man types more compelling (and so, more shippable) as the fish-out-of-water protagonists falling deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole of weirdness. Shadow started out working for Mr. Wednesday, following his orders no matter how strange they initially appeared and being the straight man character for his eccentricities to bounce off of, but he never felt like anyone's long-suffering babysitter or nagging mother hen. He had his own troubles, his own sad past as a woobie who got out of jail only to find out the woman he loved had cheated on him with his friend and then died, and scary supernatural shit kept happening to him despite him just wanting a quiet life and a job. And Mad Sweeney was just the aggressive prick who picked a fight with him for no reason, got tangled with him and his zombie ex due to a freaky chain of events that Shadow had absolutely no way to know he was starting, and resented him enough for that to give shippers an unintentionally very gay line like "damn is dark eyes!" that made it into a bunch of crackvids as That One Gay Moment and on many Tumblr blogs as an OTP tag. So right from the beginning, it was clear they were probably never gonna have a "black guy cleaning up after the white guy's messes" thing going on.

And sure, there were also many people shipping Mad Sweeney with Laura, because they had more scenes together and more of an established dynamic... and it was a dynamic where they were both always snarking at each other even when being stuck together, at that. But they often had to deal with a "how dare you ship Laura with anyone, she's a bitch and evil and we as the audience are meant to hate her!!" crowd that sounded suspiciously like many other "don't you dare put a woman between my slash ship" crowds.

Also, a bit off topic from my point but while I never really felt the urge to ship Rhodey/Tony, I also never really understood why Steve/Tony was so popular in MCU fandom before Civil War. My impression when trying to figure it out after watching The Avengers was that comic fans were just really excited to have a liveaction adaptation of a ship that had had years of development (and a Steve/Fem!Tony wedding in a parallel universe, I think?) through the years in comic form... and their enthusiasm ended up dominating the fandom for a while, leaving not a lot of space for other ships. I think the only one somewhat able to rival Steve/Tony was Tony/Loki, but the main Loki ship at that point was Thorki, so Tony/Loki was considered a bit of a crackpair anyway...

I have to say I never checked on Rhodey/Tony before that, though. I just always assumed it had kind of dropped from the face of fandom partly due to the recasting and partly due to people jumping ship to Steve/Tony.

Steve/Tony was pretty popular because of existing comics fans (and fic), yeah. I didn't remember it being quite so overwhelming.

Right now, the sidebar for MCU on AO3 looks like this:

James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers (58243)

Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (35675)

Peter Parker & Tony Stark (26000)

Pepper Potts/Tony Stark (21178)

Loki/Thor (Marvel) (14221)

James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader (14103)

James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers (11546)

Loki/Tony Stark (11502)

Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov (11474)

Clint Barton/Phil Coulson (10812)

If I filter by time for 2012 and before, it looks like this:

Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (2874)

Clint Barton/Phil Coulson (1984)

Loki/Thor (Marvel) (1451)

Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov (1372)

Pepper Potts/Tony Stark (1108)

Loki/Tony Stark (843)

Bruce Banner/Tony Stark (833)

Jane Foster/Thor (548)

James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers (418)

Loki & Thor (260)

Stony had more of a lead than I realized at the time, but this was also the height of inexplicable Clint/Coulson's reign. I think some of the Pepperony never made it off of LJ and other sites too.

I haven't seen American Gods, but having a leading role usually helps with those writing problems. A canon can still decide to sideline a major character in favor of other characters (Star Wars, I'm looking at you), but a show lead is in a lot less danger of feeling like a babysitter. Even if he ends up cleaning up someone's messes or something, he's more of an audience surrogate annoyed about this job or worried about his friend or having some emotion the audience is supposed to pay attention to and give a fuck about. The classic sidelined supportive best friend ensemble character feels like a prop because the audience is never invited to know or care how he feels about what he's doing. He's not an audience surrogate. He's not someone whose interiority matters.

That's the real key: interiority. Plenty of media represents minority characters as sexy or cool or some other positive attribute but doesn't invite us inside their head and thus subtly tells us that they're set dressing, not a person. A lead who drives the plot is generally written better.

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oriocrack · 1 year

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You have one missed message...

Hey-o, it's Techno. Can you hear me all right today? That's great. I'll hurry.

I'm one of a hundred other somewhat similar Blades. I'm probably not the one you remember. If I was looking for someone, though, you'd know. But no, it's been a long time since I've pursued the coveted 4/4. Maybe time has passed, maybe I've lost hope, but now I'd be a bad brother, uncle, friend and ...yeah, whatever, exhale. Hehe, you might ask why I'm writing this. Maybe I'm writing in the void and you'll never know it, but let me tell you a thing or two:

— Wherever you are, Theseus, I hope you don't give up. The world can be a complete bastard, but don't let it break you, even when you're not the main character. Take care of yourself, please don't be afraid to trust your loved ones, and please remember that you are loved. Even if you can be that rabid raccoon.

From Techno hugging you tight.

— Wilbur, twin, my half of the same whole. Even in a billion universes, we'll still be connected and even alike, and... you know, I'm kind of glad about that. Not to say I'm still cool with the whole family thing, but I worry about you, as I do about Tommy even through a hundred eras and universes. I miss you, even if that means I miss your dramatic antics and the loud voice of that gremlin. I know you like to think a lot and keep quiet about it. Don't be silent about it. Talk about it. You think you can be too clingy, too intrusive. Oh chaos, forget it. You're important. You're loved. You're good at being a brother. Yes, there are mistakes, but everyone is capable of them, it's normal. Take care of yourself. Get some rest. Create. Eat well and get out of your head more often. I've had enough of one Pogtopia... Please? Hm.

From the techno who brazenly ruined your hair with his hand.

— Phil... It's a tricky one, really. I love and respect you immensely with everything you've got. I hope you have your sbi or Kristin, Missa, heh, anyone you could discuss something with without feeling responsible for the kids. Zombie babies don't bother you, do they? You just say the word. Are you still the father of half the world? Huh, not an easy task, I guess, but when has that ever stopped you. Hope they're not bothering you too much, old bird.... It's been many days since I've seen you, since the last time we just sat together late at night by the old fireplace. I hold every moment of that time in my soul as if my life depended on it... It's silly, I suppose. But I believe that where you are now you are happy, if not, then... Don't drift, your happiness must be wandering around somewhere. Please rest once in a while. Don't take too much on yourself. Please take care of yourself. And be careful.

From wishing you well and a pinch of anarchy, your Techno.

I love all of you guys. Just remember that. With all your problems and flaws and absolutely every single thing you have. Remember that. Remember that you're beautiful stars.And don't ever let the world put you out.

From your God of potatoes and anarchy... Technoblade.

#techno kin #dsmp #dsmp kin #technoblade #aesthetic

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hacked-by-jake · 2 years

Note

SPOILER

Hey, hey hbj! Just wanted to thank you for your kind response to my ask about Bob ad Eric! I absolutely loved it🥰

I actually didn't thought much deep bout them but all your thinking made me think as twice now😂

Ah, I actually understand. Pretty much everyone are on both Jake and Richy for the last episode, even I! Definitely a lot more intrigue in knowing where our hacker is at.

Glad to see, you actually understood what I meant, even though I wasn't much clear while talking about them, them English classes really be helping.😄

Alright, to the point now⬇️

Absolutely loved how you included Phil into that all police things, didn't thought about him at all till your response. It actually does make sense and it's a really good thinking on your part!

I never had a thought about a conspiracy in the Duskwood police but that would actually be interesting if it where to happened! Though, I really do think that Everbyte wouldn't go as far as doing something with that, but we never know. They are quite good at giving surprise. 😄

But I do think the new game will surely have something to do with the FIB, after seeing how the last episode end. Gonna be honest, I'm exited to see how things will go even more while seeing how many theories are going around, with how the new game potentially will be.

Although, I did saw and understand the fact of the new game have a new surrounding, it is stated that «people might recognize you for your accomplishments in Duskwood» which means even though it won't be about Duskwood, it will still be mentioned at some point right?👀 Even more so, since it is in the same universe.

What if, something happened, and for whatever reason we need to get in contact with someone from Duskwood but still be a new characters and instead of Alan or anyone we know they decide to let us speak to Bob or Eric.

That would means they would have been foreshadowed from the first game.

I have saw that Everbyte actually love to let small hints to help us but they usually really well hidden so seeing them two being so obvious is really just intriguing to me. They either just will never be seen later on or just main at some point.

Imagine if one of them is actually related to the new case, though not because of Duskwood but because of the police force in general, FIB or something completely different. 🤔 I feel like that would actually be cool, yet weird.

I honestly just spoke with my mind, no much things as facts, I don't know if I forgot to mention anything but I things that would be all.😄

Sorry if it's a bit too long, got some ideas and theories popping in my head at the same time as I write😂

Thank you for your time, and kind words!!🙏

Post 1

So first of all: "people might recognize you for your accomplishments in duskwood" I’m pretty sure it will mean that people know that we solved the case around Hannah and other people from the new game will already know that. So we will continue to play our MC, the same character as in Duskwood. I think this refers to the FBI or maybe someone else but I think that it will have nothing to do with Duskwood. I think it will mean that the FBI knows that we already have experience solving criminal cases and therefore they also hope for our help or want our help because we are not inexperienced and have done good work in finding Hannah. 🤔

However, I find it a little bit confusing. I mean, of course we must not start the new game through duskwood, but get an independent start. However, I would find it interesting if someone from duskwood would write us first.

I don’t think it will be Hannah because she will probably have other problems at first, but maybe Alan. Or actually one of the other two policemen.

Alan has too much to do on the spot, so either Bob or Eric should do it. And maybe they tell us that Jake was arrested, and I mean, Alan now knows we have close contact with Jake. So he will probably let us know about it..

But let’s see, how you also say, Everbyte has apparently planned a lot in advance and maybe Bob and Eric will still be important for us. Whether it’s about the new game or not, I think it’s absolutely clear that something is wrong with the Duskwood police.

And your idea that it could have something to do with police organizations in general is also incredibly interesting and a good idea. That could actually fit, very well.🤔

Ugh, I really have no idea. There are so many incredible possibilities for the new game and Everbyte has written the text on the website so captivating, it’s absolutely confusing and so exciting. I would like to write down 100 theories and just dream to bridge the time. I’m just too excited and there are so many different things we have to answer etc. 😫

I hope we will get some news soon, it would make me the happiest person in the world.

And now of course two things. I am sorry that I only now answer you and you had to wait so long patiently, I hope that you are not angry with me.. :(

And second, I apologize that my answer is such a complete and weird mess, at least that’s how it feels to me. I’m just a little confused right now, so please excuse that. 😅

Thank you again for your time and sharing your thoughts with me, I am very happy about it! I hope you will have a wonderful day/evening/night! Take care of yourself and stay healthy! 💜🥰

#duskwood anon ask #duskwood theories #duskwood police #duskwood alan #duskwood eric #duskwood bob #duskwood thoughts #duskwood episode 10 #duskwood #duskwood fbi #everbyte studio #duskwood game #duskwood jake #duskwood everbyte #everbyte duskwood #iamjake #duskwood mc #everbyte game #hbj dw answers

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bonesandthebees · 2 years

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ALRIGHTY CHAPTER TWELVE OF STARS!

Right off the bat, the strain on Wilbur and Tommy's relationship that has become evident throughout the last few chapters is quite interesting to read (and also impressive, good writing is a bit difficult to come by in this fandom, and you ALWAYS deliver!) as it slowly came into the light. Wilbur explaining to Tommy what happened in the library with Phil - also chef's kiss, I hate the miscommunication/lack of communication/keeping secrets trope and I'm glad you chose to have Wilbur tell him :)

Secondly, I will never ever get over Schlatt calling Wilbur "loverboy". It just makes me laugh in the middle of a very serious chapter! Also, at the end, the "we aren't friends but maybe in another universe we could be" just made me so slkskjhdkjadfhlkg. I am normal about that line I swear

Third, the fact that crimeboys are by themselves with AEduo again really hit me - I wasn't expecting the other leaders to leave so soon, and I can't wait to see where it goes next!

Lastly, this isn't directly related to stars, but you saying that you've been writing since you were 15 (did I remember right?) and have such incredible fics, it really inspired me to work more on my own ficwriting - i'm a 17-year-old homeschooled kid who always loved writing, and more recently, writing fics - and it seems that every story I write gets better and better, which is good! Basically I aspire to write like you :)

aww thank you so much!! one of my favorite things to write are arguments so all the tommy and wilbur tension this chapter was so unbelievably fun for me to write. you can tell their dynamic has shifted and it's getting worse as more blocks come between them, and it's really fun for me to play around with. and yeah I also hate the really stupid miscommunication trope. like if you're gonna keep a secret from someone you need a good reason for it, and I didn't feel like there was any real reason for wilbur to keep his conversation with phil from tommy at this point so I just had him talk about it. miscommunication can be great, but only when you have proper motivation and logic behind it

ah loverboy... it's just such a quintessential schlatt thing I have to include it

did I intend for schlatt and wilbur to almost be kind of friends in this fic? no. am I happy with how it turned out? absolutely bc I got to write that line

yeah the summit was definitely reaching it's end. there's only so much I can do when i'm trying to balance that many characters, so I knew I had to end it soon or else we'd just keep getting the same "go to meeting --> crimeboys have argument --> phil says some ominous shit to wilbur" formula over and over again

also technically yes I've been writing fanfic since I was 15, but I actually have been writing creatively ever since I first learned how to read when I was, like, 6ish. I got serious about my writing as an actual skill I wanted to practice when I was around 13ish, so I wrote original stuff a lot until I discovered fanfic when I was 15 and started writing that so I could have an audience and that's been my main source of writing practice ever since. (I'm turning 22 in a few weeks so there's a bit of a timeline for you lol)

I'm so glad it inspired you though that means so much to hear!! the best way to improve your skills is always going to be to just practice. write anything you want, whether that be nonsensical snippets, single scenes from aus that you're never going to post, even just tiny dialogue exchanges. you don't have to write to post, just write for yourself and to make scenes in your head exist in reality. write anything and everything without worrying about how 'good' it is and you'll start seeing a lot of improvement really fast! any kind of writing at all whether it be fic or original content will help you just learn how to make a whole scene out of words on a page. I'm so glad you're writing your own stuff and that you're already seeing improvement. keep it up, you're only going to get better <3

#crow anon #ask #the stars and their children #bones writes

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forgetmenotblues · 1 year

Text

52 in 52 2022

It is a fact universally recognised that the best time to do your book roundup for the year is 4 months into the next year

I kept not getting round to it,then I watched loads of good movies and was gonna do them but I want to stop procrastinating this so I can always edit those in

2022 Books

1)Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

This was utterly fantastic. Or at least it was once I googled “should I have any idea what’s going on?” and was reassured that no, no I should not. For some reason I only seem to read the Locked Tomb books when I’m on night shifts, and these books are hard enough to keep up with without being sleep deprived. The book is split into two sections, one of which is a retelling of book 1 but with the main character changed, and one is in second person, with the protagonist being traumatised, lobotomised, schizophrenic, and haunted. There’s murder via soup, there’s a threesome with God, there’s a DIFFERENT threesome with God in which I think every participant is at least 2 or 3 different identities… The Necromancer God Emperor of the Universe makes a None pizza with left beef joke… this book has it all. The ever-ramping up pace where you cannot stop reading because the entire last third is one long ever increasing climax (phrasing) reminds me a lot of Terry Pratchett, just queer and Goth and Kiwi.

2)A Practical Guide to Conquering the World, KJ Parker

The third in the loose trilogy starting with 16 ways to defend a walled city. Similarly quasi-Roman historical fantasy with an amoral con artist getting so out of their depth they end up having to conquer the world in order to stay ahead of the heat… you know what you’re getting with a KJ Parker book. Honestly this one didn’t do it as much for me, I think because I binged KJ Parker in 2021 and when every book is similar it works better reading one per year or so… still an utterly enjoyable read.

3)Fellowship of the Ring

Yeah it’s this pretty indie fantasy series, you probably haven’t heard of it… I went with an audiobook this time around, by Phil Dragash. He uses background music from the Peter Jackson films and models the voices on the actors, while doing the full unabridged novels. It’s a great approach to capture the cinematic feeling of the films with the beauty and complexity of the books. Shockingly enough, an unauthorised audiobook using unauthorised film soundtrack is not legal, so if you want to check this out, archive.org hosts a full version just to teach you the error of your ways.

4)Graham Greene – Destructors and Other Short Stories

I really really thought Graham Greene did like… fun thrillers, kind of James Bond-esque… no idea where I got that from. This was a collection of pretty morose stories, but utterly compelling. There was a very charming post-apocalyptic one with kids gathering blackberries and coming across the wreck of a ship from the before times, there was a very weird kind of dark Narnia story about a man going to his childhood home and finding that the vast forest he remembers getting lost in was actually a small patch of brush, the vast lake he remembers sailing across is basically a muddy pond etc… but then starts to find evidence his more fantastical adventures might have been true. May We Borrow Your Husband is a pretty fantastic, if deeply sad, story about repressed homosexuality in the early 20th century, The Destructors is utterly heart-breaking. Annoyingly, the version I had from the library cut off the ends of some stories, so I had to go hunting for the last few sentences.

5)Invisible Man, HG Wells

I always feel a bit of a prat when I read well known, widely agreed upon classics and go “oh wow, this is actually pretty great, has anyone heard of this… Shakespeare guy?” Well here I am again, having just discovered HG Wells. You’re welcome. I absolutely adored War of the Worlds in 2021, Invisible Man isn’t quite as good, but that’s just because of the very high bar. The whole story is set around my neck of the woods, and the depiction of Sussex folk as a bit simple, but utterly intractable reads incredibly true. There’s also this oddly charming balance between the genuine horror of the idea of a violent man wanting to kill you and how hard it would be to defend yourself if he’s invisible, vs the slightly tongue in cheek way that the invisible man declares himself king of the world, but is consistently laid low by obstacles like… gravel.

6) The Time Machine, HG Wells

Another absolute banger. - a quote I expect to see on the cover of the next edition of the Time Machine. This one I had a predisposition to liking, beyond my growing love of HG Wells, as I often feel I might be the only person in the world who watched, and loved, the early 2000's film adaptation. This is another of those early genre books where it just has such fun with what was at the time a completely novel concept. In a hard to define synesthesia type way, this story is the feeling of walking barefoot on the grass.

7)The Two Towers, Tolkien

It’s very hard to judge, but this might be my favourite book of the trilogy (I know, not a book, not a trilogy etc etc). The Treason of Isengard is utterly fantastic, and probably has the most fun in the whole of Tolkien’s work just bouncing around and introducing us to new places and peoples. The Ring Goes East has yet more fantastic setting and characters, and “Frodo was alive, but taken by the enemy” is one of the strongest cliff-hangers I’ve ever seen.

8)Return of the King, Tolkien

There just isn't much to say about LoTR that hasn't been said a million times before. Its absolutely wonderful. I enjoyed reading this around the time of year it's set, there's a strong seasonal theme I'd never picked up before.

9,10,11) The Blade Itself, Before They’re Hanged, and Last Argument of Kings

I’ve combined these three because they it's very much a story in three parts trilogy. I'd always heard Joe Abercrombie dismissed as straightforward shallow grimdark, so I was blown away by this trilogy. It's a fantastic series, some incredible characters. Spoilers - the overall theme is basically what if gandalf was evil, manipulating the world over his incredibly long life, for the greater good. I adore Jezal as an utterly slimy character propped up as a fantasy hero for the sake of a figurehead, and Logan Ninefingers is the richest take on the wandering badass wolverine type character I've seen. I read these ones mostly on psych night shifts, which were lovely for snug on call rooms and long uninterrupted hours.

12) A Game of Thrones

Again, what is there to say that hasn't been said 8 million times. I run an ASOIAF art blog for crying out loud. So this time I'll just comment on the edition I read - the beautiful folio edition. Very luxuriant, very lovely, though I will admit having a separate map instead of it being in the book itself was kind of frustratingly unwieldy.

13) Elric of Melniboné

One of the big classics of fantasy I've always meant to check out. Sadly so far the most compelling part of the collection has been the Neil Gaiman short story used as an introduction! I do enjoy the stories, they just tend to drag a little in the middle. I think the best way I can put it is that if a story says there will be a quest to 7 dungeons, most will either have a twist or a montage after dungeon 3 or 4, so as to not just repeat the same structure the whole time... Elric stories will give you all 7. Theres a lot of great imagery and it reads very well.

14) Redwall

A classic from my childhood I felt like revisiting. It holds up incredibly well, a nice mix of cutesy woodland creatures having supper with very genuine medieval warfare. It reads like a much older book than it is, and I think the reason is that Matthias is a very classical, almost Nietzchean hero - he's not the hero because he's meek or humble, he's the hero because he's competent, well-liked, and, when he needs to be, utterly ruthless and bloodthirsty.

15) The Red Knight, Miles Cameron

I had really mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, it's got some incredibly rich worldbuilding, some great Byronic characters, and the author is a world renowned medieval sword fighter and clearly knows his stuff. On the other hand, they mention in the afterword it was inspired by roleplaying campaigns and I think that shows - a lot of fights for the sake of fights that could have been condensed.

16) Art of Garry Gianni

A fantastic artist who does a lot of ASOIAF artwork. He goes for a very picture-book illustrative style that makes the books feel like a half remembered childhood memory of reading tales of king arthur. He also has a lot of more realistic medieval work ie silly looking hats and hosiery, which does a good job of balancing out the all black leather of the tv show.

17) A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Clearly I was inspired by the GG artbook!

Lovely as always.

18) The Count of Monte Cristo

Every year, I make great progress in reading lots of books in winter, then as spring starts I get cocky and take on a mammoth book that takes me months. This was this years. I listened to a CC audiobook, which was fantastic, but I only saw 4 parts out of the actual total of 6, so underestimated the overall length. I will say, I thought he was gonna have to really rush his revenge! Again, a hard novel to say anything new about - I loved it. Every single time I read a revenge story I think "I want them all to suffer, I'll never learn that people are complex and revenge ends up hurting innocents and view it in a more nuanced way" and then whaddya know?! I was fairly enjoying it as an "old timey novels ramble a bit sometimes, maybe paid by the word*", but at the end the elements all come back together in a way that gave me chills as I began to see not a word had been wasted.

*I did have a drinking game for every time the exact same life-long description of one character was given, about half a dozen times in one chapter and a few times after. It felt like oral tradition type storytelling.

19) The Hero, Dreamsongs

Okay this is clearly where I panicked about CoMC slowing me down so much and counted short stories as separate. Cheating? Maybe, but the stakes could not be lower. I've bounced off of Dreamsongs a few times as it opens with stories GRRM wrote when he was literally about 6. Which is fascinating from an archival kind of perspective, but doesn't make for the best reads. This is the first of his actually published works, it's about a grizzled space marine type ready to finally retire from the war and see the earth he's been fighting for, who then gets killed by the brass because he's too dangerous to ever actually go back to earth, then written up as a war hero killed in action for further propaganda. Its solid stuff, nothing world shattering, although GRRM did send it in as evidence for his conscientious objector application, so maybe it did change the world!

20) Last Exit to San Breta, Dreamsongs

Basically the question of what would happen to ghost cars in a world where technology has rendered cars obsolete. Again, not revolutionary but very well written.

21) The Second Kind of Loneliness, Dreamsongs

Before each group of stories in dreamsongs, GRRM does a bit of a retrospective. He describes this one as where he really got started and some of his finest work... I dint know if it was just the raised expectations, but it was probably my least favourite. Similar to Moon in some ways, it has someone working at a hyperspace gate counting down to the supply ship coming to relieve him, then panicking as it misses the deadline. As his mental state declines we learn he took this lonely job out of building anxiety after a romantic rejection, and eventually that this panic caused him to destroy the supply ship before the story started and reset his memory, and that this loop may have happened before. Which has some good bones, especially as a parable of incels and the internet, but it does have some feelings of nice guy-ness that isn't just the narrator but the story itself.

22) With Morning Comes Mistfall

On the other hand, I loved this one, which I get the impression is not the most highly rated. Essentially there's a holiday resort planet, it's got pretty lovely mountains and forests, but its main draw is rumours of spectral ghost-like beings. Scientists come to investigate, find that it's all bullshit, people stop coming and the resort fails. It sounds pretty humdrum, and relies on the "mean scientist dislikes enthusiasm and imagination" trope which I hate, but it really sells the love the resort host has for his planet, and the heartbreak of his passion being destroyed. Again in a post internet world, the idea that the planet has beautiful mountains, forests, and seas, but no one would visit for just those because there are planets with perfect sea, perfect mountains, or perfect forests feels very powerful.

23) Song for Lya, Dreamsongs

Another one where high expectations maybe hurt it a bit. A very solid fantasy story about the question of would you go into a state of permanent absolute bliss where you achieve nothing, or stay in real life with ups and downs... or as philosophers call it, the box full of porn and nitrous problem. It was absolutely good, but I've often heard it cited by ASOIAF fans as the best thing ever and it just... wasnt, for me.

24) Tower of Ashes, Dreamsongs

This one fell fairly flat. Quite nice guy-ish in a not fully intentional way, quite intriguing setting but not especially explored.

25) 7 times never kill man, Dreamsongs

This might be my favourite of the lot. Scary space marine death religion comes up against little ewok type creatures, the protagonist tries to train the ewoks up, 7 samurai style, and then... the ewoks/ the planet-wide consciousness is able to manipulate the death cult religion into becoming a suicide cult, and possibly every religion in the galaxy was seeded by this planet as an immune response style defence against potential attackers? If I'm remembering right? Genuinely creepy and haunting, I kept mulling this one over for a long long time. This is basically the gritty reboot of James Cameron's Avatar, way ahead of time.

26) Stone City, Dreamsongs

Another that didnt massively work for me, nothing terrible and some cool concepts, but just didnt really spark anything for me personally.

27) Bitterblooms, Dreamsongs

Another major contender for my favourite of the collection. A LOT of ASOIAF DNA in this one, with decade long winters roamed by the undead, X of House Y titles, a lot of familiar names. The story itself has a sort of twisted Doctor Who plot, a person from the ASOIAF-esque planet finds a spaceship, and is seemingly whirled around the galaxy on an adventure but can only look out the window from within the ship, eventually it turns out the ship is broken down and hasn't moved, and they were just watching record logs on the windows.

28) Princess and Mr Whiffle, Patrick Rothfuss

I took a break from Dreamsongs to read... a short story by an acclaimed fantasy author with a long delayed finale to their subversive fantasy epic! This is a fun book, with a good reading by Rothfuss on youtube, I'd thoroughly recommend. It seems like a slightly dark childrens story, then turns out to be a very dark regular story. It's worth watching the youtube reading as he also explains his thought process, honestly it's made me a little less optimistic regarding kkc as it has a slight vibe of a "technically I didnt lie to you" twist...

29) Interview with a Vampire, Anne Rice

I've spent a good part of my life goth-adjacent, I grew up on Buffy and have a real love for all things vampire, so this was always on my horizon. I was put off by Anne Rices whole... vibe online, and everything I heard about "well by book 17, it's mostly about the war between the Atlanteans and Hell". I cant speak for any of that, but the first book was everything its hyped up to be. Lovely slow moody southern gothic. From everything I know about Anne Rice's personal politics, I do wonder if shes one of those authors who sort of backed into being a queer icon by trying to depict the worst thing she could imagine, that being just... a queer relationship.

30) Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell

This was one of those very book club type books you see everywhere for a while... I didn't love it. The idea is to tell the #feministretelling of Shakespeare's life by focusing on his wife, and what she went through when their son Hamnet died and he wrote a play called Hamlet. The issues are: a) it buys into the whole witchy cottagecore vibe with Anne Hathaway being pretty explicitly descended from the Fair Folk and having magic healing powers, which I think shoots the whole 'women were an important part of history and deserve to have their stories told' stone dead, as it suggests said stories are so boring they need literal elf magic to make them worth telling; and b) that it still fundamentally fails in that I spent most of the book going "wonder what old Billy boy's up to" the scraps we get of him are way more interesting.

31) Sherlock Holmes, The Empty House

The other big short story selection I read this year - most of the SH bibliography. I didnt realise until starting out that the vast majority of SH was short stories, and there were only 4 full length novels. The only one I'd read prior was Hound of the Baskervilles. I'll touch on the stories briefly then give a longer wrap up.

Not sure why I started with this one, it's the one where SH comes back to life after the Reichanbach falls. I don't know if there was a lower bar for what counted as mysterious back then, but basically: the guy is found with a bullet in his head in a locked room. The window is open. No one heard a shot. It turns out... he was shot through the window with a silencer. Like... I get ACD was practically writing under duress, but it feels pretty fucking phoned in.

32) SH, The Devils Foot

Again, the mystery here is: 3 people are found in a room, 2 insane and 1 dead, having been left perfectly well. The solution: theres a magical mushroom from Darkest Africa™ that makes people insane or die when burned and inhaled. I don't know if I'm coming at SH with the wrong attitude, but I continued to find the 'mysteries' pretty underwhelming. This one gets 1 bingo point for 'never previously described technology/item from The Colonies™ that solves the whole mystery but has never previously been established" (see the silenced air gun in the empty house actually), but also wins a point for "Sherlock decides the murderer is a pretty legit dude and just let's him go".

33) SH Abbey Grange

Another with the "Sherlock decides the murderer is a pretty legit dude and just let's him go" plot - honestly my favourite part of reading Sherlock Holmes, and very interesting to compare to modern copoganda shows with their "cool motive, still murder" attitude, especially as so many police procedural end with "well, you were right to fight against the wildly unjust system, but you did a crime so we have to arrest you. Deal with the unjust system? Nah, not my department mate "

34) SH The Speckled Band

The mystery: 2 heiresses live with their evil uncle. One dies in the room next to his, her last words "the speckled band". The other is moved into the same room and fears she'll be killed next. Sherlock finds that the bed is bolted in place directly under a vent joining to the uncle's room. It turns out the uncle pushed a venomous snake through the vent.

That's not a fucking mystery!!! I'm not even a big whodunnit person, but if you have heiresses killed, obviously their last living relative is doing it. Also the story spends the whole time telling you he's evil through details like "he let's romani travellers stay on his land"... oh yeah, this story hella racist. So maybe it's not meant to be a whodunnit but more of a howdunnit... except the second you hear "she died in the room next to his, then he moved me to that room, and theres a vent in the adjoining wall"... there's no mystery! The snake is a nice orientalist touch, but wouldn't be fundamentally different to evil mushroom gas or anything else. Incidentally she said "the speckled band", describing the drake's characteristic feature, as her last words instead of "uncle murdered me" or "snake vent, beware!" because [explanation not found].

It also gets a bingo point for "needlessly dark John Watson framing device that renders the whole story pointless" - it opens with "I can now tell this story because the last living person involved in it is now dead" - the sister they saved is the only survivor, so I guess after all that she just got his by a fuvking bus or something.

So at this point I thought, boy, this is unfortunate, 64 sherlock holmes stories, of course there would be some stinkers, what are the odds I'd exclusively pick them. So i looked it up. The speckled band is considered the best sherlock holmes story, ACDs favourite, critically acclaimed. At this point, it's safe to say I'm just not clicking with Sherlock Holmes.

35) Meathouse Man, Dreamsongs

In a dystopian future, neural mindlinks are used to make corpses into cheap labour, with one person puppeteering several corpses in dangerous environments. The corpses are also used as sex workers.

So yeah, it's pretty nasty. It's got some great dystopian imagery of giant industrial machines strip mining whole planets, and it Mark's the point where GRRM starts to really interrogate some of his nice guy-isms into dark, insightful takes on toxic masculinity.

36) Hound of the Baskervilles

As I said, this was the only SH I'd previously read, and I remembered it being pretty good! That had been when I was a kid, and all these short stories had sucked so bad... was I just misremembering? Fortunately, no! HotB is exactly what you want from a Sherlock Holmes story, great setting, cast of possible suspects all of whom are more than they appear... this is one of those cases where the best known work is best known for a reason.

37) A Study in Scarlet, SH

Decided to see if it was just a case of SH novels > short stories, and read the first novel. The first half or so is pretty classic SH fare, with a London murder, mysterious clues written in blood, footprint analysis etc etc and then... the entire 2nd half of the novel is a fucking western. We get the whole life story of a guy in a wagon train, sets up a life with Mormons, gets hunted down by murderous mormon death squads... and then in the last 2 pages, we jump back to London with a "and that's why he murdered this guy". Love it. I genuinely checked a few times to make sure I hadnt got a messed up copy of the book spliced with Mormon Murder Cowboys.

38) Arthur and the Seeing Stone, Kevin Crossley-Holland

The first of a wonderful trio of arthurian novels. They contrast the mythological arthur with a historically accurate young noble called Arthur in ~1200, with parallels between the mythological arthur and his counterpart that serve to highlight the historical context for the arthurian mythos and why these stories mattered to people. They're ostensibly childrens books and I first read them as a kid, but there's a lot of value to an adult reread.

39) The Final Problem, SH

The one where ol Holmes-y dies. Its shocking the extent to which ACD was clearly just ready to be done. Sherlock pops up, says "btw all of our cases were masterminded by an evil genius, I've never mentioned him before but he's so bad that it wouldnt be the worst thing if I died fighting him" and then whaddya know! It's very fun to me because I remember the trend of superhero comics killing off their heroes and the exact same writing tropes were in play - I've never mentioned this before but I have a really ultra mega serious nemesis.

40) Valley of Fear, SH

Another of the full length Holmes novels, and weirdly enough has the same structure - half a pretty standard SH mystery, second half a shockingly long largely unrelated story in America that leads to a 2 page "and that led into this mystery" denouement. It also has Moriarty awkwardly shoehorned into the story to retcon him into being a serious threat, which it does by some other top class SH bingo tropes - Watsons narration ending with "oh btw, the characters of this story fell off a ship like 4 months later".

41) Elric, Fortress of the Pearl - Moorcock

I'm starting to worry Elric might just not be for me. Theres some fun stuff in here, and a very conan-esque vibe. The issues are that of the 2 I've read, Elric is such a powerful character that the only route to drama is having him be suicidal apathetic until he's almost done for, then suddenly snapping to and fighting back out of the abyss. Secondly, I've mentioned before that Moorcock is not one to cut corners. There are 7 or 9 or 12 magical dream realms described to traverse, so he traverses them each in turn. There's no deviation from this pattern once its planned out, just plodding on through.

42) Beyond the Deepwoods, Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell

The 1st of the Edge Chronicles, a series I read piecemeal bits of when I was a kid and always stayed with me. Extremely creative and grotesque, with lots of bulbous and oozing creatures brought to life by Riddells signature style. This first book has a very fairytale structure with the protagonist essentially running into some new creature each chapter and escaping by the skin of his teeth. This gives it a lovely simplicity, the later books get a bit more into fantasy worldbuilding which has pros and cons.

43) Smoke and Mirrors, Neil Gaiman

Collection of short stories, if I was being consistent these should be separate like the GRRM and Sherlock Holmes ones but it's my list. Also some of these were like 2 pages and I couldn't justify counting that to myself.

Chivalry - one of Gaimans best known, a little old lady finds the grail at a charity shop, Galahad tries to get it off her. I liked it more this time around, but I still find the old lady a bit too mean.

The disappearance of miss finch - this is one my favourite of the many many Gaiman stories of "you go to a circus/magic show and it turns out to be real" - this one gets the balance of the person "deserving" it better, and a pleasant impression they're happier for it after all.

Bay Wolf - probably my favourite of the collection. Beowulf as a futuristic noir detective episode of baywatch. Grendel is a steroid junkie called Grand Al. Top notch stuff.

Murder Mysteries - another fantastical noir detective story, this time about an angel created to solve the first murder. Manages to combine classic noir elements with theological questions shockingly deftly.

Snow Glass Apples - one of my absolute favourite Gaiman stories. Theres a tumblr post that makes the rounds every few years about "hey snow white is deathly pale with ruby red lips and spends a long time seemingly dead in a coffin before waking... vampire?" and every time I dutifully comment that this exact story exists and is fantastic.

44 Stormchaser

Book 2 of the deepwoods books, this is where the series turns more towards steampunk fantasy worldbuilding. On the plus side, this is fascinating well written world, on the other... it's pretty fucking grim. Which is weird to say about a series written for children, but its genuinely quite depressing. Poverty, exploitation, mutilation etc... I had to take a break after this trilogy as there was a repeating pattern of introducing a likeable memorable crew of misfits and outcasts, then killing them all off one by one.

45 Midnight over Sanctphrax

This one is less grim in itself, but it ends with a "and the adventure continues" hook, and I remember from the sequel books that it continues into misery, despair, and most of the cast dying of dysentery. Again - grim!

46) Into The Narrowdark, Tad Williams

Book 3 of the new Osten Ard series. One of the best fantasy books I've read since ASOIAF. There was a part where I couldn't stop reading until I discovered one characters fate, even though that was about 400 pages. There was a reveal that made me swear at the book and walk away, just to come straight back.

47) This is How You Lose the Time War

A very fun short novel about opposite agents of battling time travelling agencies who start to write each other encoded gloating messages (encoded in the rings of wood of a tree one agent will cut down to build Genghis Khans trebuchets to change history, for example), and gradually fall in love. Very poetic and beautifully written.

48) Fire and Blood, GRRM

Gave this one another read, inspired by how much I enjoyed HotD. I think the first read I went in with very low expectations which gave it an edge, this time around I knew it wouldnt be terrible so less of a pleasant surprise and I noticed more of the... issues. That said, HotD showed me how some of the seemingly flat characters can actually be rich and nuanced. One in particular I wonder about is Jahaerys, who makes a lot of sense as a potentially great person with rot at the foundations - if he knows that at some level he only has power by usurping his cool lesbian sister, all his misogyny makes sense as a retroactive justification. Because honestly on this reread, he seemed like a Shittier dude than Maegor.

49) Fairy Tale, Stephen King

A take on the Narnia style portal fantasy by the one and only Stephen King. This was a thoroughly enjoyable read, not necessarily a world shaking masterpiece but recaptured the feeling of being a kid and getting utterly engrossed in a story. You can definitely tell Kings age by how he writes his teenage protagonist - he conveniently only watches the classic movie channel so can only quote films from Kings reference pool, there's some pretty realistic sections of him doing home repair by watching youtube videos but keeps calling it The Tube... its very sweet and endearing. As is classic with King, he's so good at writing day to day life you almost dont want the fantasy elements to start, but once they do they're so fun you wished they'd shown up sooner.

50) Arthur at the Crossing Place

Book 2 of the seeing stone trilogy. The trilogy is fairly classic 2 part trilogy, with part 1 working as a very standalone novel, while part 2 is mostly set up for part 3. However, theres a lot of good material, lovely prose, and well worth reading.

51) Dracula (daily) Bram Stoker

A certified 2022 phenomenon. This was a huge amount of fun, parcelling out Dracula chronologically, letting a whole fandom form, having dramatic long hiatus and bursts of action. I also love matching stories to their chronology, as I mentioned with LOTR, which would be very suited to this same format. I've read dracula before, this definitely enhanced my enjoyment. In my memory theres a real drop after the Jonathan Harker diary, but this format a) acknowledged that by having the long hiatus and b) overcomes that and makes the latter part of the story feel much more significant.

52) Arthur King of the Middle March

The third part of the trilogy. This one focuses on the disastrous Fourth Crusade, where half the people who had RSVPd didnt show up, leaving the ones who did with an enormous bill for more ships than they could use, which Venice agreed they could pay off by attacking Venices enemies... who were other Christians. This allows the conceit of contrasting the real world chivalry knights with the idealised Arthurian round table to come to a head, fantastically showing the moral decay and sense of stagnation as they occupy and loot their ostensible brothers in christendom. The book came out in 2003, but has incredibly on point vibes of the Iraq war as a whole... although I suppose the issue here is that the crusaders never even reached the middle east.

#52 in 52 #mine #books #2022 #dracula daily

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stormy-skies-falling · 2 years

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𝕄𝕖𝕖𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕋𝕖𝕒𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕣 ℕ𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥

Meet the teachers and a few students that attend/teach at DSMP High!

Main Characters

Y/n L/n

Teaches: psychology

Age: 27

Personality: 100% done, *mom stare,* “why not???”, “can you not.”, “my dad jokes are hilarious-- shut your face.”, "no we're not going to palov's dog anyone here... unless someone gets on my nerves..."

Moodboard:

Dream Wastaken

Teaches: english (inspired by @teefumz)

Age: 28

Personality: “Hey baby *winks with both eyes,*” “oh no– I have a phD; I just choose to be like this.,” *trips,* smooth jazz music stops, “Now write me a five page essay on the symbolizations in the Percy Jackson Universe.”

Moodboard:

General Characters

George Davidson:

Teaches: computer science (inspired by @teefumz)

Age: 30

Personality: “shut up and do your work,” “yeah. this is my fifth cup of coffee; what about it?,” 100% done, y/n + george = totally done with dream’s crap

Sapnap:

Teaches: gym/health (inspired by @teefumz)

Age: 26

Personality: “what do you mean I can’t do that?,” “you wanna see me do 400 push-ups–” “no–” “ –okay, if you insist!,” *shrieks,* “~oh dreamy-poo!~” “stop.”

Karl Jacobs:

Teaches: art

Age: 29

Personality: “it’s an expression.,” pure angel, UwU, “shut your entire mom,” “I love the giraffe you drew!” “that’s supposed to be you.” “...you drew me so well!”

Alex Quackity:

Teaches: government/criminal justice (inspired by @teefumz)

Age: 27

Personality: “shut up and listen.,” *throws book,* “I’m going to play my mixtape for you and you’re gonna like it.,” “I would die for you… okay I would share my burger with you… probably.” “thanks, Quackity.,” absolute angel

Phil (Philza) Minecraft:

Teaches: school counselor (inspired by @teefumz)

Age: 45

Personality: *tired sigh,* 100% done, “mate,” “and why did you think it was a good idea to microwave a grape?” “science.” “okay.”

Technoblade:

Teaches: literature

Age: 27

Personality: “so anarchy can be seen in different–” “mr. blade, mr. minecraft said that you couldn’t tell us about anarchy anymore.,” *blank stare,* *fatherly stare,* “dad jokes are funny, anyone who disagrees with me will fail this class.”

Wilbur Soot:

Teaches: geography (inspired by @teefumz)

Age: 27

Personality: *recites the entirety of the Hamilton Soundtrack in a New Zealand accent,* *pushes tommy,* “~why hello there gogy~,” “yeah that’s right, I’m the hot geography teacher–” “ –no one said–” “i’M THE HOT GEOGRAPHY TEACHER!”

Tommy:

student (inspired by @teefumz)

Age: 17

Personality: “I better get an ‘A’ for this.,” *screams internally,* 100% done with y/n and dream especially, “pHIIIIIL!!!”

Tubbo:

student (inspired by @teefumz)

Age: 17

Personality: “this is just sad at this point.,” >:D , “I think we have pretty good odds in not blowing up the school.,” *microwave rotating noises*

Ranboo:

student (inspired by @teefumz)

Age: 17

Personality: “how about we don’t do that.,” actually tries in school, mother hen, *holds tommy and tubbo by their monkey backpack leashes*

Taglist:

@baguettehead @malinalovejoy @torpedo--belly @dinonuggets199 @2cuteforyourlies @shakiraa-a @thinkingotherwise @iyvoryxx @cybergiirl @mayempress

note: and that concludes "Meet the Teacher Night" (with some students)!

*just remember: all the characters' personalities are just how I interpret them for the purpose of the story*

I hope y'all enjoyed and remember to stay hydrated! Kisses! <3

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lazyliars · 3 years

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The Quackity Meta: a Tale of Two Absolutes

More than anything else, Quackity wants control, and to never, ever lose his own autonomy. And that is why he despises Technoblade.

But wait, how is Technoblade a threat to Quackity's autonomy? Techno is all for individual freedom! He wants to eradicate the government so that no one can be controlled!

There's the question though... How do people exercise control within the framework of a video game like m/inec/raft?

“a person exercising power or control in a cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary way.”

Power on the Dream SMP cannot be translated one-to-one with real life power. In real life, yes, a government had infinitely more power than an individual, for numerous reasons. But on the Dream SMP, the government's power is always directly tied to the power of the individuals who are willing to defend that power.

Technoblade is powerful. This is not debatable. How he uses this power, historically, has been a mix of generosity and self-interest*, although primarily the latter.

Generously, He gains resources and then distributes them to his allies during the Pogtopia Rebellion, gearing everyone up and giving them a fighting chance against Dream. However, in the aftermath of Tubbo's being appointed president, Techno turns on them, swiftly and mercilessly. The moment that it becomes clear** that Pogtopia's interests don't align with his own, he crushes them with the aim to prevent them from ever recovering.

( *I use self-interest as a neutral term here. Everyone on the SMP is selfish to some extent – it doesn't make them evil, and in fact has been treated as a positive at times, as well as a negative.

**I want to note that whether or not Technoblade knew of Pogtopia's goal of reinstating the government is unclear. It would seem that from Techno's POV that he didn't know, or assumed that it was a minority who wanted another government. But on the other hand, no one was actively lying to him about their intent, and people like Tommy and Quackity made their goals very clear. Further doubt is cast on the idea that Techno had no idea when you take into account that he enchanted the Netherite armor in the vault with worthless enchants like Fire Res.

Ultimately, there's no way to know until it is confirmed by cc!Techno himself, and it doesn't pertain that much to this analysis, but I'm aware that it's a hotly debated topic so I wanted to address it.)

It can be argued that Techno's destruction of L'manberg, both the first and especially the second time, was necessary. It can also be argued that it was cruel and a disproportionate retribution against both culpable and innocent parties. Extant of these arguments however, how does it feature into control?

Well, we can’t talk about control without mentioning the most controlling force on the server and the other person on Quackity's hitlist, Dream.

Dream is a tyrant. I don't think anyone can really make an argument against that in good faith at this point. He ticks off every box, no matter how vague or esoteric. This makes the interactions that Quackity and Techno have with him very interesting.

Quackity despises Dream. He's one of the earliest adopters of the hating-Dream-train, to the point that some people have compared him to Cassandra, a priestess who was cursed with the vision of prophecies that would always be true, but never believed. And indeed, Quackity's apprehension of Dream comes in as early as Pogtopia, and grows at a steady pace after the fact.

But despite his rightfully calling out Dream's hypocrisies and his controlling tendencies, Quackity was largely ignored on this front, especially when the time came to exile Tommy and Quackity basically predicted the next arc – If they gave Dream this concession, they would never be able to get out from under his thumb. Flash forwards to the Green Festival, and the moment Tubbo hands over the discs, any illusion of nicety drops and Dream proceeds to destroy them, side by side with...

Technoblade has always had an amiable relationship with Dream. From their first proper interaction on the server being Dream giving Techno some hefty resources, to their snap team-up on Doomsday, they've had a smooth time, with some notable bumps.

Techno fought against Dream during the Pogtopia rebellion, but when it became clear that Dream was more invested in chaos than his other allies, Techno temporarily allied with him to summon the Withers and drive the nail deeper into Manberg’s coffin.

The only time Techno has really bothered to challenge Dream directly is when he came for Tommy in exile. Techno went to great lengths to protect Tommy, hiding him and distracting Dream.

He did give Dream the option to call in his favor and take Tommy, but there are arguments to be made that he did this more as a challenge – that Tommy is worth the favor. Again, we probably wont ever know.

The difference in their relationships with Dream is polarizing. It also reflects the difference in personality – Quackity is an aggressive, ambitious person, whereas Techno leans more towards passivity and caution. Quackity is looking for enemies to challenge, where Techno is avoiding them, people who actually stand a chance against him most of all.

Technoblade is an individual with extraordinary amounts of power. Others have pointed out that he is rarely challenged by other characters or the narrative, and regardless of the merits or flaws in that, it paints him as nearly untouchable. His being in the good graces of Dream only adds to this.

And like with Dream, the only way that people have been able to threaten Techno is when they work together. The Butcher Army, for all it's flaws, managed to capture Techno through numbers – with Tubbo and Fundy (barely) holding off Techno's blood rage while Quackity snuck off to take Carl hostage. And they would have gotten away with it too, if the other most powerful person on the server hadn't stepped in – both by pointing Techno to a totem of undying in the days before the attack, and by getting Punz to cause a distraction and directing Techno to the final control room, where he could escape with Carl.

So, if the most powerful person in the world can only be threatened by people working together, and the most common form of organization is by government, then what does it say about Technoblade, who wants the government destroyed?

People like Tubbo, Fundy and yes, Quackity, all benefit from organizing and working together. They all tend to be less armed, less ready to defend themselves, and completely unable to stand up to titans like Techno and Dream on their own. It's safety in numbers, but it's also control, and control is power.

Ranboo's insistence that Snowchester is a Government is interesting when viewed through this lens. Ranboo is another person who is insanely rich, and able to defend himself and his belongings consistently. Ranboo doesn't need other people to defend him – he's living with Techno and Phil not out of necessity for his survival, but out of need for connection with others.

This seems to be the main difference he finds with Snowchester, which has a more structured environment, geared to defend itself and it's people, if harm should come their way.

Which makes sense, considering it's founder, Tubbo, holds no earthly belongings, and Jack, another prominent member, has made a character trait out of losing his things every other day. The two of them have no conceivable way to defend themselves against people who are stronger than they are. But together, holding the keys to nuclear armaments, they can suddenly play on the field of gods.

The anarchist commune, despite having all members working together and being on good terms, aren't really an organization, they're individuals with common goals and interests. They don't need to live together to be strong, they're all already strong, they choose to be near each other because they want to.

Snowchester is not a government and has no ruler, but together, it's members hold power. They have sway in the world when they work as a collective, and most members have a vested interest in keeping themselves and each other defended because of this. Consequently, the “identity” of Snowchester becomes more prominent, resulting in the flag, the uniforms and the, well, identity.

(Now, the more perceptive among you might have noticed that I basically just compared Techno Phil and Ranboo to the ultra rich 1%, which. Um. Is a pretty serious comparison to make about in a block game rp?

And I wanna say that I don’t think this was necessarily intentional on the parts of either the CCs or the characters, and beyond that, it’s just one way of examining the text. This analysis is by no means the “Right” way to view the story, just a different one.

Regardless...)

Techno uses his considerable power to further his own goals, first and foremost. This is not inherently good or evil, it just is.

Contrast with New L'manberg's cabinet; Four people, pooling their limited power to further their shared goals. Not good or evil, just a way of exercising power.

But power is not static. Power is fluid and changing, moreso now on the SMP than ever before, and Quackity and Technoblade are fighting to define what Power means going forwards.

Techno is fighting for the status quo, knowingly or not. Individuals with power should lead the world, and those without should strive to emulate their betters. He destroys all forms of government, which strip away the rights of the individual in exchange for hierarchy and consolidated power within that hierarchy.

At it's best, this is a very freeing ideology, where nothing and no one can hold back the individual. The world is your oyster if you are willing to work for it.

But at it's worst? “Violence is the only universal language,” is the key phrase. Where does this ideology leave people who aren't strong? Where does it leave those who cannot fend for themselves? If Violence is the only universal language, then the weak have no means to speak.

Quackity is fighting to get a foothold for a contrary ideology – One that prioritizes words over violence and offers alternative methods of gaining and exercising control, such as through currency and conversation. Quackity has tried to varying degrees of success to implement this on the level of his own individual power, such as during the elections, but his attempts at employing this on a grand scale have all been short-lived.

At it's best, this ideology can uplift anyone, regardless of their strength. It encourages more communication, more commerce, and thrives under, you guessed it, strong government.

At it's worst however, it creates a brutally controlling environment. Where a few people gain absurd amounts of power through the complex machinations of a fiat currency, and are then able to use their sway and influence with governing forces to exercise power that they would never be able to hold on their own.

Again, neither of these ideologies are inherently good or evil. They both have flaws and benefits, and benefit no one more than perhaps Techno and Quackity respectively, while hindering the other.

Techno is benefited by anarchy because he holds incredible amounts of individual power. He is the strongest person on the server, he is rich beyond anyone's wildest dreams, and on a meta level, he's straight up good at the game. The current status quo puts him firmly at the top of the food chain, and this is most obvious on Doomsday, when he and the other two most powerful individuals (Dream and Philza) come together and crush the combined forces of New L'manberg. They are not meaningfully challenged in any way, whatsoever.

Meanwhile, Quackity is deeply hindered by the current status quo. He's not strong, he's poor, and he's vulnerable to anyone who wants to bully him with brute force. On a meta level, cc!Quackity just straight up does not play m/inecraf/t as much as some of the other people that on the server. (To be clear, I do not mention that as a criticism, just to contrast Techno. Neither of their levels of play are better or worse for content, they just add to the experience differently.)

On the other hand, in a government? Quackity “Law Student” HQ is suddenly on top. He's charismatic enough to debate with Wilbur “Can Talk His Way out of Anything” Soot during the elections, and come out of that arena smelling like roses. Back during the days of El Rapids, Quackity held his men back from conflict with Dream, and talked him into a corner of technical truths where Dream had to concede that he viewed El Rapids as an independent nation if he wanted to get involved with their conflicts.

And Techno, while he is brilliant and an English Major, suddenly loses a lot of his intimidation factor if he has to respect laws preventing brutal murder. Techno can certainly debate, but his go to conflict resolution is usually violence, and if you take that away, you take away the threat of challenging him. Because make no mistake, challenging Technoblade right now? Is suicide.

And this duality, this grey morality and clash of ideals, is why Quackity is my favorite character on the SMP. He isn't strong. The power he holds is tenuous and balanced on a knife's edge. It would make more sense for him to stay quiet, keep his head down, and if anything, try to change things from the shadows, where he'll be in the least danger.

But he isn't quiet. He doesn't just challenge authority, he challenges the authority; Dream, Wilbur, and of course, Technoblade.

And in all but one of those matches, he's come out with a concession from his enemy gripped between his teeth. He schooled Wilbur in the debates. He forced Dream to grant El Rapids Independence at a time when he hadn't done so for New L'manberg.

But he failed miserably when he challenged Technoblade. Quackity lost that fight in the final control room before it began. He lost the moment he formed the Butcher Army. He would have lost if he managed to kill Technoblade, and he lost still when he died.

He lost because he conceded that the only way to achieve his goal was through violence. He decided that the only way to establish himself and New L'manberg as powerful? Was to kill Technoblade. And he lost that fight and he always will. There was never a way that he walked out of that fight with the victory; Quackity lost the ideological battle long ago.

But not the war.

As of writing this, Quackity is in the process of introducing an economy to the Dream SMP, on Sam's initiative. There is no action I can think of that is wiser for him to take right now. Now, when Dream has been deposed and there's a vacuum in power; Now, when people are getting tired of endless violence and the loss it brings; Now, when people are looking for something new.

An economy is a direct challenge to Might Makes Right. Trading, supply and demand, politics. It offers a new way for people to obtain resources and a direct alternative to brute force; other methods to pay for slights and breaches of honor and etiquette. No more will pet wars be fought with iron swords and shields, but with money! A healthy sum of cash for the murder of Fungi!

If Quackity can get this system off the ground (and with Sam's help, he definitely can,) the stage would suddenly be tilted in the favor of not just Quackity, but the people who he has associated himself with most closely – Tommy, Fundy, even Schlatt. They're all business men, all scammers. This could be Quackity's world, and he's damn well intending for everyone to live in it.

We’ll have to see what Techno thinks of this - Quackity hasn’t made any moves to start another government, and an economy doesn’t inherently contradict anarchy. But it does hold a potential threat to Techno’s current power.

And as for Quackity? What will he do once he’s at the top? Will he finally become a true tyrant? Will he usher in a new age of equality and justice? Or will he eschew all of that in favor of personal riches. For once, the cards are in Quackity's favor, and we might get the chance to see what he does when he holds real power.

#Dream SMP #Quackity #Technoblade #Ranboo #Dreamwastaken #Dream SMP analysis #lazytext #long post #its done its done i did it its done #ive been working on this for THREE WEEKS #THREE WEEKS OF CHECKING VODS AND WIKIS AND AAAAAAAAAAAAA #If theres typos I DONT CARE #I LIVE MY LIFE AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

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tobi-smp · 3 years

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No one asked for it, but since I'm doing fic recs here's a list of my favorite tommy-centric fics just, Ever.

- Orange Light (Painted by Morning Sun) by HoneyDew_Tea (On-going) 73,706 words

A vampire au set entirely outside of the dream smp universe, but no less rich on history or lore for it. More importantly, it's an adoption au steeped in horror and atmosphere.

In this world, newly turned vampires are loved like family, held close and protected like children (which is exactly what they are). We open with tommy, an orphan turned vampire hunter, dragging a newly turned tubbo down the street into a ratty hotel. They're scrambling for any and every way to get out of the country without being stopped by either a pissed off coven missing their baby or the hunter organization that'd have tubbo killed at best.

an addition to their problem: Wilbur, techno, and phil (one of the older and more prestigious covens) have been friendly with tommy for years now, and they realize very quickly that they're going to have to act soon.

SBI adoption and dadschlatt au with absolutely Beautifully paced writing, characterization, and world building. The atmosphere is lovely and the character dynamics are a delight. This fic updating is literally an Event

- ashen knuckles, burning eyes by soul_speed (Finished) 8,735

A possibly pre-canon fic centering on tommy as a child raised in the nether (a human raised with piglins, who speaks their language and lives by their customs) being found by philza and techno (a piglin raised by a human, who only barely remembers piglin customs but nevertheless exists as a figure of legend to them).

The world building is Amazing, and I wish for nothing more than to explore this world and this dynamic further.

- Hush Now (You Were Lost but Now You’re Found) by CorpseArt (On-going) 81,149 words

A hero-villain au and a damn fun one at that. Tommy is a disgraced hero both trying to live a normal life and get back the life that he had in the aftermath of the end. Raised by dream (the number one hero in the city) he went into hiding after standing between him and "siren" (a renowned villain), holding dream at gunpoint when dream had gone in to kill despite that going against everything they'd stood for.

The web of characters and dynamics in this story is absolutely a Delight, there is nothing more satisfying than seeing a hero or villain name and instantly recognizing the person it belongs to, waiting anxiously until you get to see them in action. and more than that is the web of civilian identities tangling heroes and villains together without them realizing.

The main focus is tommy being pulled in the sbi's orbit (who are, of course, villains) and his relationship with wilbur especially, but this is a massive lived-in world that tommy is trying to pull his way through while searching for a sense of purpose after he's lost everything he'd been alive for.

- take a step back by willthrowhands (On-going) 26,052 words

This fic ruined me. The concept is this: In the heat of doomsday tubbo went down and he never got up again. Tommy buried him next to the bench, quiet and alone, and he left. With nothing left to live for, but feeling as though tubbo's sacrifice would be a waste if he just gave up and died, he moved into the depths of pogtopia to build Some kind of life in the dark.

It's only as time passed that he realized that no one else knew what happened, that not even dream knew tubbo was gone.

It's some of the most beautiful prose I've read in my life, full of mourning and loss, with Very poignant imagery to boot. reading this will hurt you and you'll thank the author for the privilege after.

- A Sky Underground by fishstixx (On-going) 58,143 words

It goes like this: tommyinnit is a mutt. A hybrid mix of unknown origin (with fangs and lightning and an affinity for digging) shoved into fighting rings as a pup and rescued by dream. he was raised in an enclosure underground (with a fake sky and filtered air, with dirt to dig and plants to run through) not as a child but as a pet. still, he loved dream. one day though, dream tells him that he has to fight for him, and what other choice does he have?

He's let out into more of the building for the first time in his life, meeting sapnap, whose here to train him.

slowly but surely, sapnap and him grow closer (with sapnap learning to see tommy's humanity and tommy struggling to process that against his sureness of his inhumanity), tommy sees more of the bunker, and eventually the outside world. and across the other side of the battlefield there's phil, techno, and wilbur, whose lives are going to cross over with a mutt they've never seen before.

I wasn't expecting to care so much about sap and tommy's relationship here but I Do, I Do So Much Oh My God.

#dream smp #tommyinnit #tubbo #wilbur soot #philza #techno #jschlatt #dreamwastaken #awesamdude #jack manifold #sapnap #fic #fic rec #dream smp fic #only tagging people with bigger roles in the stories

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zephycluster · 3 years

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Precolonial HWS SEA Rant Post, feel free to ignore

If you're still reading, then you're probably looking for evidence or some juicy tidbits to throw back at me or to try and find dirt to cancel me, like typical Tumblr/Twitter. Go ahead, I don't really care.

First off, let me just say that If you like Precolonial South-East Asia AUs, feel free to keep enjoying them. I will respectfully support your passions from afar. This post is just to explain why I don't like it, especially the way they keep insisting/portraying PH in it.

Still here? Then let me begin.

Since the recent confirmation that the ASEAN Six Majors (Can't really say ASEAN 10 atm since it's still missing some people) Were completed and the Ma-Phil-Indo Trio was included, there has been a large surge in 'Precolonial' fanarts and portrayals of South East Asians, those three especially.

Even long, long before, circa 2010's ish, a rather well-known fan universe known as 'Maaf' dealt with their story and how their Author thought their intertwined histories went. Written by (my best guesstimate) an Indonesian writer who wants to explore the old, SEA bond.

When I first stumbled across Maaf (I was in Highschool at the time, around age 16-ish), I took a casual interest in it and tried to read it through. But, I will wholeheartedly admit that at the time, Pre-Colonial cultures of South-East Asia in general, let alone Philippine, did not really interest me that much. The focus (I think) was mostly on Indonesia, a country I didn't really know back then, and the liberal use of 'ancient' names and artwork just made it feel like an entirely Original Work (that needed a degree in History to really appreciate) and not something from Hetalia. I also completely disagreed with what I could gather was the story's portrayal of PH but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Do I hate 'Maaf'? No, I don't hate it. Do I wish I never came across it or that it didn't exist? Of course not. Just because I didn't enjoy it or appreciate it that well doesn't mean I wish any ill toward it, its fans, or its creator.

Fast forward to April 2021, the long awaited inclusion of South East Asia to the canon Hetalia verse. I was happy, the other fans were happy, all was good.

Then started the questionable fanarts, fan theories and fan pairings.

Especially the expansion of Precolonial! PH.

Let's go back to Maaf for one moment. From what I understood of Maaf, PH there was a character who once was like all the other South East Asian cultures, trading with them, all around being a nice family.

But all that changed when the Spaniards attacked, so cry the precolonial buffs. They destroyed everything, ransacked and marginalized the tribes, erased everything that PH was!

Did that happen? ABSOLUTELY. The Spaniards had this vision in mind that they must spread Christianity to all of the 'savage, unchristian heathens' of their realm. :V /s

But back up a second, back to PH's portrayal in Maaf. The way she (yeah, she) was portrayed there was that she was slowly losing her memories of being a 'true' South East Asian and grew more and more westernized in the process, like some sort of Culture-specific Alzheimer's or something.

Firstly, that is seriously depressing, and secondly, I just really don't see that happening.

Here's why.

Point 1: Even before Colonial Masters, Filipinos as a people cannot agree on anything.

I'll just begin this segment with a Philippine proverb that outlines what Filipinos call 'Crab Mentality' or 'Crab Bucket Mentality'.

"You don't need a lid for a container when you're keeping multiple crabs. If you keep at least two crabs together, they will just pull each other down instead of helping each other up."

I don't know how it goes with Indonesian or Malaysian history class, but what I know of my homeland, both pre- and post-colonial history, we were never really 'united' or 'together' in the sense that Indonesia and Malaysia were (from what I assume).

Let me pull up a somewhat related question on r/AskHistorians.

The reason I brought this up as it shows the reasons why, in my opinion, a single entity that is 'Precolonial Philippines-tan' is an impossibility.

The answers are long and would extend this already long post to stupid proportions, so I'll just quote relevant sentences. The link is here for those that wanna deep-dive into the answer.

"All this to say that there wasn't a name used for the entire Philippine islands before the Philippines that people now would agree to. An interesting comparison would be the Holy Roman Empire, which might also be characterized as disparate politico-geographic groups of relatively small size that had a history of relations between each other, but one thing they had that the Philippines did not was a common language, or at least a family of mostly mutually intelligible languages, so that the name Deutschland or Germany isn't terribly offensive to anyone. If you called the Philippines the 'Lupang-Tagalog' or even 'Lupang-Tao' the other ethnic groups would protest."

For those in need of translation, 'Lupang Tagalog' means 'Land of the Tagalogs' and 'Lupang Tao' means 'Land of People', specifically. The first one is already exclusive and offensive, as the Tagalog peoples are but one of many ethnicities here.

And for the 'Lupang Tagalog' suggestion specifically, it's even more offensive as they are the majority ethnicity (not by much, just around 28%) From this chart from Geography Now! It would basically be alienating everyone else in the 72% remainder that isn't 'Tagalog'.

And even 'Lupang Tao', the most generic name in a local language you can think of, would be met with contempt because the name itself is in the Tagalog language.

Just travelling between two individual island groups today would sometimes require a translator because the words can change very rapidly and very drastically. Here's a sample of some differences coming from a friend living in Visayas (in Red) vs. the words I know living in Luzon (In blue).

Ate vs. Manang = Older Sister

Ibon vs. Pispis = Bird

Tumawa vs. Kadlaw = To laugh

Takot vs. Hadlok = Fear

Kain vs. Kaon = To eat

Ngayon vs. Subong = Now, at this point in time

Iyak vs. Hibi/Gibi = to cry

Talampakan vs. Tiil = Foot (in Tagalog, the word retains its 'body part AND unit of measurement' meaning)

Tulog vs. Tuyo = to sleep (Tuyo in Tagalog is either a dried salted fish or 'to dry')

The kicker is that just like Tagalog is just one of many languages here, so too is the language my friend speaks. Ask an entirely new person, like someone from Mindanao, they'll probably have an entirely new set of words.

It's not just Luzon vs. Visayas vs. Mindanao, either. Here's a map listing some of the ethnic groups here.

Even the way they're written differs from location to location.

While we're on the subject of Island divisions, a casual skim across Twitter and Tumblr has shown that their Precolonial PH has been one of the following ancient civilizations: Tondo, Butuan, Sugbu, Namayan. There may have been others but that was what I have found.

Notice how even today, the posters of Precolonial PH can't seem to agree on what he's supposed to be? With Indonesia it's either Majapahit or Srivijaya and Malaysia it's usually Malacca iirc.

What is the big deal? Well, let's go back to the Ask Historians post. "Why didn't the Philippines ever change its name to remove the colonial mark that being named after a Spanish King has?" The answer: "If you suggested something dating to precolonial times, the other ethnic groups would protest."

Since we're on a roll with maps, let me bring this up.

As you can see, the precolonial PH posts have a reason to not be able to agree on one thing, as there is a LOT of options. Do you also see how THAT list is also split up?

It's split up into those aligned with China (Sinified), aligned with India (Indianized), aligned with the Middle East (Islamicized), and no alignment (Animist). Now, let's go back to the main suggestions for which Kingdom/Polity/Civilization/whatever Modern Philippines used to be.

If the Filipino peoples' couldn't agree on something as simple as WHAT TO CALL THE LAND THEY'RE LIVING ON, what more a living, breathing, walking, talking entity that is supposed to be a beacon of all of their 'unified' culture? ESPECIALLY if that entity used to be a currently existing Kingdom/Polity/Rajahnate/Sultanate/whatever.

Tondo? "Of course, always the damn Tagalogs. Tagalog this, Tagalog that. First the capital city, then the language,* THE REST OF US EXIST, YOU KNOW! What about us in Visayas? Mindanao?"

*The national language known as 'Filipino' is just standardized Tagalog*

Butuan? "Wait, you want Butuan to represent us? They're they only Indian-aligned city in the Islam-majority Mindanao! They're not even that many of them! I'm not gonna change my religion!"

Sugbu, the other name for the Rajahnate of Cebu on the map? Lemme bring back my Visayan friend again. According to her, she hails from the Hiligaynon part of Visayas.

"Sure :v and the other islands are what?

Chopped liver?

Not to mention the language and writing barrier helloooo"

And Namayan? Well. I'll let this pic speak for itself.

To summarize, no matter who you pick as Modern PH's previous identity, it will not end well nor be accepted by the other Kingdoms at the time.

"So where does that leave Modern PH, he had to have been ONE of them, right?"

Well, not really. He doesn't HAVE to be one of the Ancient Kingdoms that lasted till the modern day. I mean, predecessor representatives exist in Hetalia canon, after all. Like Modern Greece is a different character from Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt and Modern Egypt, heck even England and his brothers have a canon mother that was the rep before them.

Or you could even use the same logic that Germany does, in that each specific region has/had its own representative and that Modern!PH is just the 'mediator' between them (cause gawd does PH need one). There could be a Tondo, a Namayan, a Butuan, and a Sugbu, all arguing and this Proto-PH is just trying to make headway in making them all satisfied.

But, even after all this, there is another reason why I personally don't subscribe to the 'Precolonial PH' idea, and by tangential extension, the Indo x Phil pairing.

Point 2: Even without intending to, Precolonial Indo x Phil just comes off as patronizing

This second point is just ENTIRELY personal preference and barely has any facts to back it up.

Again, if you like the pairing and disagree with me, You do you. I will respectfully support you and your passions from a distance.

But for me, Indo being Phil's seme/bae/boyfriend and consistently bringing up precolonial times just comes off as patronizing.

Just one more time, I'd like to point out that I am NOT bashing Indonesia, its people or the subscribers of Indo x Phil. This is just how the pairing feels to ME specifically.

The way I see it, Indo x Phil as a pairing, especially if it extends back into precolonial times, reads the same way as a long-since married couple where the husband/wife CONSTANTLY brings up that ONE outing you had together, or that ONE prom night where you kissed while dancing, even it happened like 30 some-odd years ago and so much more happened since then.

Even in a platonic sense, It reads like two besties where one ALWAYS mentions stuff like 'Yeah but you looked so much cooler back in High School' or 'Back in Grade School you would've known that', or 'Remember back in Pre-school we did X? How could you forget that?'

How does one respond to the notion that no matter what you do now, it will never compare to a past you've already forgotten or barely remember? That the best version of 'you' is already long gone?

"That's because the westerners made you forget your culture! You gotta take it back!"

While it is true, yes, as a collective we barely remember the Kingdom that commissioned the Laguna Copperplate, or created the Banaue Rice Terraces, or created the millennia old bonds that we still share with Indonesia and Malaysia.

But to keep pushing the precolonial identity would be to neglect and cast aside the one REAL binding belief and culture that spans the entirety of these islands we call the Philippines.

We take on all the bad stuff that happens to us, conquer it, and make it our own. Be it natural disasters, foreign powers, or negative stereotypical mentalities.

Yes, we've forgotten the ancient kingdoms of old and are just now digging through the closet for those remnants of the past. Yes, the colonizers imposed that on us, and made us forget. But in the process we've also taken everything that they left behind, everything that they threw at us, and created something that can only come from us.

The lanterns that the Spaniards used to light the way to the morning masses they made us attend became our globally known symbol of Christmas. The junked vehicles that the Americans left behind in World War 2 are now rolling works of art that announce themselves loud and proud on the streets (for better or for worse). The iced dessert recipe that the Japanese forced us to learn while they were occupying the country is now so distinct and famous it is synonymous with us, and is so delicious even Italy has taken notice.

Even after all this? Even after all the 425-ish years total we have been under a foreign power, with all the progress we've made as a country, a people, and a nation, you would still imply our fragmented, jigsaw puzzle state of being in the past was better just because it was pure 'South East Asian' like everyone else?

We might not be as well put-together as Indonesia or Malaysia, but we made this melting pot of angry, leg-pulling, dogpiling, Native, Mestizo, Chinoy, and Fil-Am crabs OURS, damnit!

It's now 4:30 AM and I have work in 5 or so hours. I'll be going to sleep now.

#hws #hws philippines #precolonial philippines #hws theory #hetalia #hetalia world stars #hetalia world series #hetalia headcanons #aph #axis powers hetalia #aph philippines #hetalia philippines #aph hetalia

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