#ths is truly the minecraft of text posts!

[lucemferto]

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT TECHNOBLADE (or A Narrative Analysis of the Dream SMP Doomsday Event) - Script

Heyo! Per request I am posting the script to my video of the same name here on tumblr. I must warn you that just reading the script will probably not give you the full experience, so I would encourage you to watch the video (linked above).

There might also still be a lot of grammatical errors in the text, because I don’t proofread.

Okay, so! I don’t want this to turn into a reaction channel OR a Dream SMP channel for that matter! I am planning on doing a big dumb, way too long analysis video on the Dream SMP which will – at my current pace – come out in five years. I am already way too late on this one.

Spoiler Alert for the Doomsday Event that took place on the 6th of January in the Dream SMP. Surely the worst thing to take place on the 6th of January 2021 … I’m sorry, what’s this about the Capitol?

In case you don’t watch the SMP and need context: The Dream SMP is a Minecraft Multiplayer Server, that, throughout the last year, has transformed from a normal Let’s Play to an ongoing new-media series streamed by multiple high-profile streamers such as Dream, TommyInnit or Technoblade. It comes complete with script – by which I mean loose bullet points – and story events. It has attracted a large fanbase specifically invested in the story and less so in the actual gameplay content. Like I said before, I will probably do a big video on the Dream SMP at some point in the future.

The storyline is long and complicated and trying to explain it all would take up the majority of the video and there are other channels who have already done a much better job than I could ever hope to do, so give them a watch. I’ll try to summarize all that is pertinent to what I will talk about in this video.

Okay, let’s speedrun this summary. Cue the music!

Major Players here are TommyInnit, a founder of the independent nation of L’Manburg, Technoblade, an anarchist who was deep in conflict with L’Manburg, Tubbo, Tommy’s best friend and current president of L’Manburg, and Dream, the ruler of the Kingdom of the Dream SMP (even though he is not the king, but we’re not going to get into that right now). Tommy had in the past been exiled by Tubbo for endangering L’Manburg’s shaky peace with the Dream SMP. Tommy had then teamed up with Technoblade, who was hellbent on destroying L’Manberg after some prior altercations – more on that later.

Tommy and Tubbo came into conflict during a festival set-up to celebrate the friendship between L’Manburg and the Dream SMP. After punching out their feelings, Tommy came to the realization that his friendship with Tubbo was more important than his vendetta against Dream and those who exiled him. Techno took that change of heart badly and teamed up with Dream to destroy L’Manburg … and that’s exactly what happened.

Techno and Dream, with little to no opposition, obliterated L’Manburg with no hope for recovery leaving its inhabitants stranded hopeless and alone.

… And that’s what you missed on Dream SMP!

Okay. So, usually I just put whatever thought slime drips out of my mouth hole into your subscription box. But then I asked myself: “Am I not taking this a largely improvised nonsense story from a bunch of 16–24-year-olds a little too seriously?”. And then I remembered. I’m a pretentious bitch. I made an 18-minute video explaining why the popular commentary YouTuber memeulous is secretly the time travelling Anti-Christ, REASON HAS NO SWAY OVER ME!

So, like the English Major drop-out that I am, I will present you with two theses, which I will then combine into one … supratheses! That word doesn’t exist, I just coined it, it’s mine! I am very smart!

[I know words, I have the best words!]

 Thesis #1: The Fandom focuses too much on Character Analysis in Favour of Narrative Analysis

The Dream SMP is truly something special. It is uniquely singular in how it tells a story of this scope through its chosen medium. While there is an overarching script that lays out the plot points of the future, each of the 30+ streamers on the SMP are their own cameraman, director, writer and actor. You cannot watch “the Dream SMP” – if you attempted that, you would be 80 by the time you caught up to the Doomsday Event. You have to choose whom to watch. You have to choose your focal point character.

Because by the way the story is told and consumed – aka in such a compartmentalized fashion; you watch one streamer and get one character’s perspective – it has sort-of unintentionally conditioned fans to look at the SMP and its characters less as one coherent story with messages and themes and more as sports teams they can root for. You’re Team Techno or Team Tubbo or Team Tommy or Team JackManifoldTV (formerly known as Thunder1408) and every other side is in the wrong! It’s like Twilight for a decade old children’s game about virtual Lego!

Okay, I’m exaggerating, but the amount of discourse perpetuated by and revolving around so-called “apologists” – a terrible term that unfortunately has caught on – is really not something that I think is good for how we interact with the story of the Dream SMP.

The Dream SMP is discussed a lot on character-based level, which is, like I said before, hugely advantaged by the way the story is consumed by its audience. With traditional, visual media such as film for example, the audience can be made more aware of what messages the narrative might try to communicate on a narrative level without the need for an explicit narrator to tell you the moral.

As an example, in a movie you could have a smash-cut from the Butcher Army’s discussions about neutralizing the danger Technoblade poses to Techno being nice around villagers or taking care of animals. This would communicate on an extradiegetic level, that the Butcher Army is in the wrong with their assumptions. Alternatively, you could contrast Techno’s declarations that power corrupts and that Tubbo’s administration is cruel with Tubbo choosing not to punish Ranboo for his association with Techno – thus the narrative would communicate that Techno’s view of Tubbo and by extension the government is one-sided and not true to reality.

Stuff like that helps the viewer understanding a story holistically and manages to communicate stuff like themes and morals without having to solely rely on in-character logic and argumentation, which, as Ghostbur put it so eloquently, is comprised of a bunch of unreliable narrators.

Character analysis is great if we want dive deep, if we really want to give a character flavour and understand their motivations. It helps make the universe feel like it is alive, like it’s real. But – and this might be a shocker for you – it’s not real. It’s written. It is construction – and as such, in its construction, it has messages and themes and morals, intentionally or unintentionally.

By being so focused on specific characters and their individual journeys, viewpoints and motivation we really run the risk of not looking at the bigger picture and fail to see what the overarching narrative is actually communicating. And we may also fail to understand how characters might or might not fit into the overarching narrative.

Speaking of which …

 Thesis #2: Technoblade experiences very little Meaningfultm Thematic Conflict

Okay, let’s talk about Technoblade. I’m sure I’m not going to get any hate for this one.

I want to preface by saying that I don’t watch Technoblade’s streams; I catch up though clip channels and summaries. I’m mainly watching Tommy, Tubbo and Quackity – which is honestly already more than I can handle – but I want to be clear that while I’ll try to be as even-handed as possible – like I explained previously – the way I consumed the storylines will undoubtedly leave me with some bias.

Also, needless to say, I’m talking about the character Technoblade, not the actual content creator, unless I specifically say so. That should be obvious.

Now, I’m not doing a Technoblade character analysis, because that would be hypocritical of me – seeing how I just bitched about the overwhelming amounts of character analyses in the fandom – but I’ll try my best to summarize what is necessary.

Technoblade’s interesting in that he is a very static character – at least inwardly – he doesn’t change much. He is very steadfast in his beliefs and ideals and has very little introspection. He doesn’t question himself; he doesn’t waver, he is never in a bind about whether what he’s doing is right or wrong. He is very much a parallel to early TommyInnit – who, of course, famously said “I’m always in the right”.

And I want to emphasize that I mean this in no way as a critique of Techno’s character. A static character provides a nice contrast to more dynamic characters and can balance them out. It can also be utilised by the writing as a character flaw – which is what I hope content creator Techno is going for.

Like Techno doesn’t have a lot of empathy in the sense that he is particularly skilled at or interested in trying to see the viewpoints of others. There is never an attempt to reconcile, for example, the goal of the Pogtopians to reclaim L’Manberg and install another administration with his desire for an anarchist society. This is also compounded with his overreliance on violence as the only tactic for conflict resolution – Techno has a whole thesis statement about violence being the only universal language. I’m sure you’ve heard the quote.

And lastly, what really drives this all over the edge, is his all-or-nothing approach when dealing with the enemy – he is not so much eye for an eye as he is – to use another biblical example – you make fun of me for being bald and I’ll sic two bears on you that maul and kill you and 41 other children.

There’s also the open and completely unacknowledged hypocrisy of a self-described anarchist working together with a man that installs and dethrones Kings with his every whim – someone who – and I cannot stress this enough – hits about every box when it comes to the definition of tyrant.

So, what I’m saying is that Technoblade is the Dream SMP equivalent of Dick Chenney. C’mon you know it’s true! He will bomb that freedom into your country whether you want him to or not. That’s some cogent political commentary in the year 2021.

Okay, so now that I’ve outlined his character, what kind of conflicts does Technoblade face. Well, it’s mostly physical or external. He fights a lot whether it’s against Quackity or Sapnap or bodying Karl Jacobs five times in a row. And – with the exception of maybe Sapnap – none of it is challenging. Technoblade is the best PvP-Player on the server – there really isn’t much tension to be had from a purely physical fight.

So, how are these fights supplemented emotionally. Well, internally there is not a lot going on. As I said before, Technoblade isn’t really an introspective character. Even during his shouting match with Tommy there’s not a sense that Technoblade is wavering or unsure of himself in the way that Tommy is. He exposits that one of the reasons, he acts like he does is that he feels dehumanized; that people only use him like a weapon and then discard or even try to neutralize him once he’s no longer useful.

But that is not something that Technoblade has to grapple with – it’s not conflict for him, it’s more conflict for Tommy. Technoblade is self-assured in that he’s a person and not a weapon – it’s almost like there was a character arc there, where Technoblade self-actualizes and breaks away from the people that want to use him. But we didn’t see any of it. Technoblade unleashes the withers; then he goes into retirement because he wants to be, I suppose, and then he returns to violence as a reaction to the Butcher Army. There is a story of vengeance here, but not any conflict about being used. There is never a point where we see Technoblade come to this realization or comes to assert himself.

In season 1 there’s never a push from Pogtopia where the narrative frames them as exploiting Technoblade. He fights with them of his own volition, he gives them weapons and armour of his own volition. Nobody pressured Techno into procuring their inventory for the fight. And in Season 2, he’s the one to approach Tommy about their potential partnership – he is in the position of power here, explicitly not Tommy.

Like, I’m sorry, if this ruffles some feathers, but I really don’t see this arc where Technoblade is being used. There’s a story of misunderstanding and maybe co-dependency – but not of dehumanization. This entire line of thought seems to solely reference that moment, where Tommy says to Sapnap “I have the blade” during one of their wars – which, to base an entire emotional arc around that without any further set-up, is, and I’m sorry to say that, incredibly flimsy.

Okay, so we covered physical and emotional conflict? But what about conflict on the narrative level? Well, that leads me to my suprathesis …

 Suprathesis: The Narrative is Unclear on how it treats Technoblade … and that’s Not Good.

Here’s a Hot Take: The narrative of Season 1 treats Technoblade way less sympathetically than that of season 2.

Let me explain. The narrative of Season 1 revolves mostly around Wilbur and Tommy. The emotional fulcrum of the overall narrative is Wilbur’s rise and fall from Grace – and Tommy succeeding him as symbol of L’Manberg’s “special”-ness. Now I will talk about all that more in detail, when I talk about Season 1 of the Dream SMP. So, you’ll just have to go with me on this one for now.

Technoblade, by contrast, doesn’t really have much going on thematically in Season 1. He mostly exists as a sort-of utilitarian character – he is an accessory to make story beats happen. Like him executing Tubbo doesn’t open up any sort of thematic conflict involving him – on a character level it sets up antipathy between him and Tommy and it grants us some insight into how he operates with his violence speech – but on a larger-scale narrative level it really just shows how far Wilbur and Tommy have drifted apart in how they react to the event.

His biggest contribution is during the Season 1 finale, but even there he plays second fiddle to Wilbur. Not just because Wilbur does way more destruction with his explosion than Techno does with his Withers, but also because Wilbur had an emotional and thematic climax to his arc and by extension the entire storyline. Like Techno’s is a cool moment and very epic visual but in terms of thematic relevance, his Theseus-speech is really more set-up for Season 2.

And Season 1 is very unambiguous about L’Manberg being good and Tommy’s ideals ultimately being morally justified – I mean, they have a whole speech about it in the end and it was built-up throughout the entire Season – Techno is cast in a … less than sympathetic light. He is, if not a villain, then definitely an antagonist.

But with Season 2 the narrative is either uninterested in or not very clear on exploring Technoblade’s flaws.

Like ask yourselves: is Technoblade’s character ever consciously challenged by the narrative? Are his actions ultimately shown to not be in the right? Are his beliefs about government and power ever called into question? Are the negative consequences that his actions cause ever shown to be larger than the “good” he does?

I think what exemplifies this the most is how the Butcher Army event played out on December 16th. Now, during that event, the Butcher Army, which was comprised of Tubbo, Quackity, Fundy and Ranboo, managed to apprehend Technoblade, who at that point was living the quiet retirement life, and tried to have him publicly executed – without trial.

Now, smarter people than me have pointed out that the Butcher Army had a bevy of in-character reasons that can justify or explain their actions. And that’s definitely interesting, but as I said before, I want to get away from that and look into how the Butcher Army is treated on a narrative level. Because this is one of the few instances where the otherwise grey-loving Season 2 has some very clear narrative intent when it comes to morality.

The Butcher Army is very deliberately framed as almost cartoonishly corrupt and violent. They very forcefully investigate Philza, mock him and then put him under house arrest – and there’s just no remorse in the script even from normally sympathetic characters like Tubbo.

Compare and contrast with the Tommy-exile scene, which is also an act of moral ambiguity and is treated as such. And things get even worse once the Army arrives at Technoblade’s abode and attack him after he softly tells them that he has left that live behind him. They then proceed to take his horse hostage, mock him and execute him without fair trial – and I haven’t seen it but from live commentary I gathered that Techno really played up the whole softie-schtick before the Butcher Army arrived. I mean, before the big Technoblade vs Quackity fight, Quackity had whole villain monologue for Christ’s sake.

And even afterwards, the Butcher Army really plays up the corrupt angle with Tubbo proposing a festival as a guise to publicly execute someone. And again, I know that on an intradiegetic there’s nuances and it’s not really comparable to the Red Festival, but in combination with what the audience has seen up until that point and with how much it feeds into the already established themes of history repeating itself and becoming like your predecessors, it really does not paint a pretty picture of the Tubbo administration.

You can feel the heavy hand of the script on your shoulder, which is a feat seeing how – as discussed before – that’s not something that can be easily accomplished in this medium.

And that is what I mean when I say that Technoblade is not really challenged by the script and is in this case even emboldened by it. Because after this whole ordeal the thought of Technoblade taking revenge by destroying L’Manberg doesn’t seem like such an extreme response to the viewer – even though in my opinion, it is.

As of right now it is too early to say how the narrative will judge Technoblade’s actions in the future. Will they be framed as extreme but ultimately justified or perpetuating a cycle of ever-escalating vengeance? Will we ever see a government that’s not just at best misguided and at worst completely awful?

Ultimately, I believe and hope that Technoblade will be challenged by the narrative, mostly because a character that cannot, believably, be physically challenged, who doesn’t have any meaningful internal conflict about what he’s doing; and who does come out on the other side having everything he always believed in be proven completely in the right by the narrative, would be incredibly boring. Not just to watch but also to play as.

As it stands now, if the destruction Techno, Phil and Dream inflicted upon L’Manburg is framed as ultimately in the right, I would find it personally a distasteful message to send. I would ultimately say that the “correct” way to counter corruption in government is to completely obliterate the entire country. Like we’re not talking simply disbanding the government – that’s not what Doomsday was – we’re talking complete and utter annihilation. And that would be cynical and depressing. Like, call me a big softie, but even bothsidesing this argument would be bad.

Like, I’m not calling for Technoblade to be transformed into or treated a monster like Dream. But I personally feel like the narrative needs to acknowledge that the Doomsday was something that was taken way too far and that it ultimately brought more harm than good. And Technoblade needs to held accountable by someone who is not a cartoonishly corrupt government-official or who is in conflict with him anyway, like Tommy.

I thought Philza or Ranboo could do that but seeing how their storylines are progressing I don’t believe that will be the case. But who knows, maybe Captain Puffy will come through for us. We stan a Queen.

 Conclusion

So, yeah, I made this entire video just to air out my grievances with how one-sided the mode of analysis is in the fandom, because no person actually involved with the production of Dream SMP will ever see this.

But after everything I am cautiously optimistic, that content creator Technoblade knows what he’s doing. He has talked in the past about how his character is a bad guy and he loves his Greek myths. After all what’s more Greek myth than hybris being rewarded with punishment? [Technoblade never dies] That bodes well for him.

Also, this isn’t the video I promised at the end of the last one!

[quackspot]

you should maybe write how you feel and maybe some people can try to help you identify if it is what your feeling? you don’t have to but it might help

ohhh yeahh i  dont realy feel it any more also thnks for listnign to me ramble its like 11:35 pm and i usally sleep around like this time i guess KLJSFKLFSJKDLIOKLFSIJDKLAJOHFIJKLSMDAJIDSF normally 10-11:30 ish 

also i talk abt m boobs for like 1 sentence m sorry about it but i dont feel like deleting it and its only a little irrelevant so like .    if ur way older than 15/younger or dont wanna see that thn its at the end of the 2nd paragraph

also in th last big block of text i mention like depression / suicidal feelings or w/e so like  if u dont wanna see that dskjflgjdskl 

ALSO ANOTHER NOTE thts completely unrelated but i shuld mention if i make a short text post or a text post like this i’ll normally tag my stuff like //*tw* with whatever is usually tagged but there like if i answered an ask with “*tw cookie* said gay rights indeed” i’d probly post it in the cookie tag but if it was like uhh i dunno there’s certain situations but yeah i’m gonna tag this as //depression and //suicidal thoughts n stuff heck yeah 

SOOOO uhhhhh im going to use kiley as an example i hope its k with her but i thinkit was just the thrill of puppy love or whatever because it only lasted like .  1 month but whenevr we called each other m’love or some other sweet thing i was like o///o fkdsjhgyuajkfeaslkjklejfklkslfekajlfksjld i really liked calling her m’love but !!!! i seriously crave physical contact and thts why i broke up with her, twice, which is rude of me ,   especially when i wrote a whole ass essay just to try to help her understand it was written at 1 am with proper grammar and i think it took like 30 minutes to write .  i basically wrote 2 essays just to break up with her? dead ass like th first one was only 2 paragraphs n the 2nd one was, longer, of course, 1 am writing compared to 3 am n stuff jkldfshuijkasfdikgdasjkl 

truly she did make me feel nice!!!! i really liked to say goodnight to her n stuff and im sorry but i dont quite remember anything besides the feelings i sometimes got which was like kind of right now where my chest is a little hurt but im happy actually my chest may be hurting right now because bras r dumb or w/e i should wear some with cups someday, whatever, therye not what im used to, cupless bras for rr   ever ! at least until i  remove my tiddys some day because im certain they’ll be too big for my comfort someday and im talking about myself rather than my feelings huh

ANYWYAS THE FEELING UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh cant quite describe it it’s rather hard to recall it since i haven’t felt it in like, a month .  i usually felt it when hanging out with kiley like on minecraft or smoething it was mostly extreme happiness and it was fun to be around her most of th time 

anyways my throat kinda feels fjunky my right eye hurts n my left nostril’s the only one i can breathe through good night im taking an allergy pill tomorrow when no body awake because that could be the case or it could not, who knows, whatever, its in my genes just like de pression o-o.   and adhd i think? yea my mommy has adhd but i dont think i do . i’m pretty sure i only have like a light form of depression and a light form of social anxiety i feel more nervous about social situations than i lay in bed thinking “i should do something” but feeling nothing and not doing anything whatsoever that only happened on like april fool’s day of last year and probably a few times where i had to mow man outdoor chores sure do put me in a rather bad mental state . aka mowing / shoveling snow off the drive way i should probably tell someone that like i feel like dying whenever i have to shovel snow and it’s utter torture to mow i certainly am going to live in an apartment or something of the sort to avoid this horrid nightmare fuel of a chore. \

wait i was supposed ot be going to sleep also my brohters in hte bathroom so like ://///// / / // / / /  

OH O HO HOH OH OHO ALSO!!! i like a song a lot its called girls and u probably know what it is and/or heard it maybe? i dunno but its pretty good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGIMjoN2MGQ

[mightbedamian]

#TMIishTuesday #43 - 16 Things I learned in 2016

No more "first off"s anymore! It's 2017. It's Tuesday. It's #TMIishTuesday. Go! Hey there mighty people of the internet! And welcome to issue #43 of #TMIishTuesday - my weekly Tumblr post about what goes through my mind and what you guys want to know more about. It can be something very personal, it can be something political, it can be completely pointless - but in 99.9 % of the cases, it involves opinions. And mine as well. Last week I went quite cliché by posting my new year's resolutions as my last post of 2016. Addition to my 5 resolutions from last week: 6. Use after-shave every day. I haven't for a while. For which reason?? Also: So far I haven't failed any resolution. I mean… It wasn't too hard, but still. Kind of proud. :D Okay, and guess what follows on a cliché post!? Another cliché post! First post of 2017. What better time to reflect on 2016? Yeey, I'm so creative! :P But you know me. If you are expecting a break-down of political events, you might need to look somewhere else. I'm sure the BBC, NBC, or ARD have made enough "year in review" broadcasts to fill an entire year. No, THIS is a reflection of some of the events that - I figured out in 2016, - I learned I in 2016, - I achieved in 2016, - have moved me in 2016, or - simply have made my 2016. Ready? Let's see, if we can make it to 16 things. 1. It's okay to be gay! At the start of 2016 I came out to basically anybody, who knows. The only exception being my best friend. That was in December 2015 already. But in 2016 I told another very close friend (who might also be reading this. Hi there!), my parents, and the parents of my two best friends. Every single one of them has been absolutely supporting. Thanks to all of you guys! <3 2. Bosses can be assholes! Don't get me wrong: I've had three jobs last year and only one boss was an asshole. But this dude. Wow! I applied for a job to do in the period between Christmas and my new study that started in August. Among others, I applied at a call centre. Not the most satisfying job, but decent enough. It was all about getting working experience anyways. But this dude ordered me 4, 5, 6 times to do 1-2 hours of calls under his supervision saying that I was very close to getting the job all the time. All of that lasted from mid January to mid February. Then he said we should schedule yet another meeting and that he would email me a date for the following week. I was already really fed up with him and the entire place. And he didn't message me. When I emailed him half-way through the following week, he replied that they had no more interest in me. That was such a kick in the face! I basically worked my ass off for them and was then fired. I had no contract or anything, but still. I feel like they betrayed me for 150-200 euros there. So that was an experience… 3. Having help in looking for a job is crucial! I applied loads for the apprenticeship that I started last August. 40, 50 letters for sure. By mid-January a friend of my parents, who had heard I was looking for one, approached me: Hey, so, I heard that this rehabilitation clinic is looking for an apprentice still. I'm cool with their Vice CEO. You could tell them I sent you and just try your luck. At the end of February I had an interview there - and after doing a one-week internship I received a call saying I could start there in summer. WOOHOO! 4. Being a cashier can be awesome! After I had been "fired" (if you want so), I felt let down, discouraged. But I wanted to work really badly. Sitting at home doing nothing really felt bad. So I applied as a cashier at the supermarket closest to my parents' (where I had moved back in). And I got the job. Worked 4-6 hours a day, 6 days a week. Having basically no weekend (when you work late shifts on Saturday and early shifts on Monday) really sucks, but it pays just like any other job you can do without a study. Not having to pay any rent, I made quite some money. And it was really fun as well! It's a massive supermarket and there are lots of returning customers - also from the surrounding area. Not just the city itself. It's quite a cool store tbh :P And my colleagues were really cool as well. On New Year's Eve I went there for the first time since leaving for a different city. Just walking through those sliding doors I felt "at home". Such cool people! I kind of miss that place. In a way... 5. Tumblr is cool! These past days I realised how Tumblr played a big role in my coming out process. I never really was aware of its influence. But in Summer (or so) 2015, half a year before coming out, I created this account and followed some blogs posting cute guys. That was the first hint, I guess? In 2016 I continued scrolling through these posts and got waaay more into it. Not only did I start writing texts that I posted on Tumblr, but the amount of time I spent scrolling and browsing just increased a lot. And I like it. Oh, and I posted my coming out story to have it written down somewhere where I can read it any time I want to - and yet hidden from friends. Great decision! I wouldn't remember it as well, if I hadn't put it there. And look what has developed from this all! I write a ton of stuff about stuff that matters to me. Every week. And I did 21 posts of #mightyadvent as well. I love it! Thanks for reading my ramblings, guys! 6. Coming out videos are great and the world is not binary! This is something that is probably also valid even more for December 2015, but: I freaking LOVE coming out videos. Recently I've been way too busy and haven't watched one in probably a month or so. But until May or June I probably watched EVERY coming out video that was uploaded to YouTube. Just to get a feeling of how my coming out had gone. And because I wanted to hear other people's stories. There is a huge mixture of reactions out there. People getting disinherited or getting hit. People with indifferent parents. People who got very loving responses telling them they supported them the way they are. I was lucky enough here. While I knew that there is more than just - male/female for gender and - hetero/gay for sexual orientations, I never really knew what else there was. Like, what exactly is there beyond the binary? Then I started watching all those coming out videos. And I stumbled across people identifying as all kinds of genders and sexual orientations. Even if some were trolls (remember the guy who came out as playing Minecraft? F*ing bastard! Sorry, I shouldn't call people this, but he deserves it), I saw LOADS of real, sometimes very inspiring videos, and stories that just make you go "awwww". Anyway, I'm drifting off again. What I wanted to say here is: I learned that there are more than two genders and more than two sexual orientations. I knew that transsexuality existed, but never had an idea what people felt like going through it. And I now know a lot about asexuality or pansexuality as well. 7. Twitter is queer, too! In the summer I somehow stumbled across VollzeitJonas's Twitter. He must have replied to some YouTuber's tweet or so. Anyway, I followed his account and thereby truly boosted my experience. By him posting some stuff and retweeting lots and lots on LGBTQ+ issues, I began to discover the topics as well. I found queer.de, a wonderful German news website that focuses on news on LGBTQ+ issues. And I found dbna.de, a site for gay youth. Dating website, community, forum, tips - it's all on there. From Jonas's Twitter account it basically just evolved over time. I interacted with him and others, who follow him and by now I follow some more cool peeps. I like that! 8. Living on your own rocks! Yeah… I moved twice this year. From the students' house in the Netherlands I had lived in for the past 4.5 years to my parents' house (in February) and then to the place I live now. And I'm really living on my own for the first time. It took some money to get all the stuff needed to fill an entire apartment. And I basically spent all the money I had earned over the 4.5 months before as a cashier. But: It was worth it. I really like my interior. It also took some time to get used to all the stuff you have to do when living on your own entirely - with no flat mates. Not owning a dish washer, cleaning everything on your own, cooking on your own… You name it. But it certainly offers some advantages as well. 9. Work can be a positive thing, too! When I started the apprenticeship in August I was quite scared. How would I be able to cope with working 40 hours a week and having to study for school at the same time. It was quite hard to get used to, to be honest. But I figured out I don't have to study tooooo much for school. My study pays off. At times I feel like the most difficult thing is constantly translating from English to German cause I studied in English. Work itself is quite interesting. Different tasks and while it gets a little boring at times, most of the times there's more to be done. And they try to assign me different tasks so I don't get too bored. That's cool. Also I have - like at the supermarket - very lovely and caring colleagues. One tiny downside: There's only one guy my age there. And I think he has a girlfriend. :/ And for the "boring" stuff there's a positive news too: I'll get to see a different department in two weeks, so a little more variety to come. I enjoy working full time cause I can see what I am doing this for already. That's cool! However I should have taken a few days off work before Christmas. I did like 95 % of my Christmas shopping the afternoon before. Oops. 10. A car can save lives! Or well… Let's say it can improve the quality of life. I got a car a month after I started the apprenticeship. It's 15 years old. But you know… as long as it keeps going… Plus it's my first car. Oh and by going by car I save about 4 hours a week on travelling time. And some money as well. Sounds weird, but makes sense once you realise that a month ticket for the train is more expensive than day tickets for me cause I only work three days a week. The other two are school which is located in the city I live. And the car also proved very useful for visiting a friend in the Netherlands. He doesn't live in the place I studied at anymore, but moved further west to Apeldoorn, meaning it was a two-hour drive for his birthday. By train it would have been 3 hours - which I probably then wouldn't have done. And it was about the same price to go. Trains are f*ing expensive! 11. Travelling is the world to me! I didn't go on a long holiday in 2016, but did several weekend trips. In May I went to visit a friend in Denmark with the mates from my Dutch table tennis club. Had the greatest time there! Three days of talks, catch-ups, table tennis, a cool city (Århus), amazing weather - to say I enjoyed my time there would be a big understatement! Side note: That is now the most Northern spot I've been to. I told you about my trip to Apeldoorn already where we had a great time as well. Even if it was only about 15 hours. And I pretty much just got back from the last highlight of 2016: I visited a very good friend in Belgium. First time I went to Belgium. Or well… I crossed it on the way to Orléans as a third-grader. That doesn't count, does it? Anyway, Belgium was really fun! Being with my two best friends is always perfect. And exploring a city I have wanted to visit for a long time, makes it even better: We went to Brussels for an entire day and explored the city of Leuven for the other day. Really cool - both cities! Want to go again! Have no trips planned for this year, but could imagine visiting my Danish friend again - and who knows what else. 12. Online dating is hard! I don't know whether I mentioned this on here and I certainly didn't "offline". But I'm sure there's a tweet about this. In October or so I got inspired by VollzeitJonas and others and created an account on that gay online dating platform. After some browsing I got a message from a guy, who was looking to meet people. And I replied politely and thought I'd give it a try. But that's just as exams started at school and I had several other "big projects" in this thing called "real life" and I felt I wasn't quite ready to invest that much energy at the time. That's why it kinda just ended after one message. Sad story. But totally not his fault. I think I should give this whole online dating thing a go again. See my new year's resolutions, btw. [/shameless self-promo] 13. I can still feel the Pulse! This is probably the most grief I've felt this year. I woke up some Sunday in June to the news of Orlando. It was early morning over there when a "man" (should we call him "man", if he's that cruel?) entered Pulse club. One of the more popular gay clubs in the city. And now probably all LGBTQ+ around the world know the club. For a very sad reason: That man didn't just enter the club. He fired into the crowd trying to assassinate as many as possible. 49 didn't make it out alive, 53 more were wounded. Most of the people at the party were of Hispanic background cause the club was holding a Latin night. That much for the motive of the perpetrator and the description of what happened. Learning about the events in the morning on Twitter just twisted my stomach. It was the first major LGBTQ+ hate crime I heard of after discovering my own sexuality. I follow several LGBTQ+ folks on Twitter, so the message spread to me rather quickly. I realised how much of a deal this was when I saw so that basically any LGBTQ+ I follow on Twitter posted about it. Sheer madness. I had just become more proactive and had just fully accepted myself as gay - and then THAT happened. Writing about this still makes my fists clench. R.I.P. to all 49. 14. Terror is here! December - the time of the year most people here in Germany get excited for Christmas. And we have those cute little Christmas markets. You can get glühwein there and fries and lots of (let's face it: pretty useless) self-made stuff. The booths are lit up with chains of light and everyone is just letting go of the stress that tends to tension the atmosphere around that time of the year. A very famous Christmas market is the one in front of Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church which itself is one of the must-see places as a tourist. And then there was the man who would kill 11 and injure 55 more when he drove a truck into that very Christmas market on 19 December. I - again - read about it first on Twitter. At first I thought it was just an accident and didn't really bother too much, skipping the messages in my timeline and scrolling on. But after an hour or so I thought it was about time to check what really was going on in Berlin. It was only then when I realised how bad things really were. We had our first successful terrorist attack in Germany. R.I.P. to the victims! 15. Prejudice sucks! Remember New Year's Eve 2015? Lots of people were sexually assaulted right next to the famous Dom cathedral in Cologne. Potentially by men "of North African appearance" (that's what Police said). And there was an outcry in the entire country for how ruthless "all the immigrants" were. What they forgot - like so many times before and after the incident - is that a group of 5-50 people is not "all immigrants". But that's a different story I could rant over for an entire #TMIishTuesday post. What also was part of the outcry was how not-present Police were during that night. How was it possible that so many ladies were assaulted in public and Police didn't notice? No one really knew the answer. Lesson of these events: More police will be present at big public events. The results? Well… New Year's Eve 2016. Cologne again. More police is present. The square in front of the Dom is closed. And we still get news. News that make me wanna puke again. Why? Apparently police checked kinda any non-white person thoroughly, while not checking white people (or not checking them that much). That's prejudice. If not racism. And no debate about this: Police being accused of being racist is an absolute no-go! And that should make them think. For heaven's sake, why can't we just have a great time on New Year's Eve? 16. Chocolate cereal likes to play hard to get! I want to end this on a lighter note, so: In 2016 I discovered that my beloved chocolate cereal really is hard to get hold of. The best deal is certainly at the Aldi (thanks for not sponsoring this post, Aldi!). Problem here: People know that. And in each batch there are like 12 (?) boxes of different types of cereals, but only one box is chocolate cereal. And guess who went to the Aldi a good few times just to get cereal and ended up NOT getting it because there were like 5 batches of cereal in the shelves, but all chocolate cereal was gone? Yepp. This guy. Sad times! 17. Thank you! Finally I'd like to say thank you to all the lovely people who made this year as great as it has been: - My friends from my hometown: Stephan, Lukas, Ago, Dennis, Katja, Linus, Desiree, Tomas - My "Dutch" friends, who are not all Dutch: Marc, Linda, Laura, Christina, Martijn, Rik, Danny, Mette, Cédric, Annelies, Abhishta, Wouter, Menno, Celestine, and the rest of my table tennis club - My friends from the new town: Jenny, Florentin, Juliet, Linda, Marina, Katharina, Lina, Dana, and the rest of my class - My parents and family - and so many I probably have missed on this list.  Also thanks to loads YouTubers: - Those that showed me that queer is cool: Ash Hardell, Ricky Dillon, Connor Franta, Calum McSwiggan, ItsColeslaw, Troye Sivan, Hannah Hart, Chandler 'N Wilson, Sam Collins, Courtney-Jai - Special shoutout to those who I witnessed coming out this year: Ricky Dillon and ItsColeslaw - Those whose vlogs up my day: Marzbar, Ben, Oskar, Felix von der Laden, Ben Brown, George Benson, izzi, FunForLouis - The German Minecraft gamers out there: skate702, CubePlayTV, Herr Bergmann (plus teams #unfazbar, #Destilay and #Vibe for their great #VARO4 videos) - The rest, who just don't fit a category, but make THE BEST content: Julien Bam, Applewar, Mikey Murphy Finally thanks to the lovely Twitter folks: - VollzeitJonas, XLucamiraX, _FlexiHD_, achojo, Hennddrik, jsnjgr Wow! This has become such a long post! I feel like it's the longest I ever posted! :O That was totally not the intention. And it turned out a little more seriously than I initially planned. But that's fine. That's just a representation of my life. That's been my 2016! Hope you liked it. I certainly did! What did you achieve in 2016? I wanna know. Let me know by placing a comment, tweeting me, dming me, or what else you can think of - you know the means to get to me. As always: Next #TMIishTuesday next Tuesday. If you have any questions in the meantime, just ask away. Whatever you’re curious about - I don’t bite. :) Also: Poll to determine next week’s topic will be up on Twitter on Sunday afternoon. Until then: Stay mighty! Oh, and here’s some self-promo: - Last #TMIishTuesday: http://mightbedamian.tumblr.com/post/155176055527/tmiishtuesday-42-new-years-resolutions - More #TMIishTuesdays: mightbedamian.tumblr.com/tagged/tmi - Poll to decide next week's topic and more very cool stuff: www.twitter.com/mightbedamian - Even more very cool stuff: mightbedamian.tumblr.com