Bishop's Knifetrick

Fanfiction
Title:	Bishop's Knifetrick
Author(s):	bovinedaemon
Date(s):	June 28 2021-April 17 2022
Length:	69,354 (9 chapters)
Genre:	Gen, M/M, Mystery
Fandom:	Original Work
External Links:	Archive of Our Own
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Bishop's Knifetrick is an original story that originated as a somewhat popular Dream SMP, specifically Tales from the SMP, fanfiction that centered around Ran and Jackie. It was written by bovinedaemon on Archive Of Our Own, also known as relaxxattack on Tumblr. It included a romantic slowburn between the two main characters. The story was privated for some time before returning as an original work and being finished.

The summary read as follows:

“So you’re here because… you want to be my very best friend?” Jackie teases.

Ran thinks about the knife in his sleeve.

“No, more like… well, it’s strictly business, really.”

-

or: ran is an assassin from another dimension assigned to take out subbin’s general, but it’s going to be a lot harder then he thinks…

The title was taken from Bishop's Knifetrick, a song by Fall Out Boy. All of the chapter titles were lyrics from the song.

Author's Notes

The author usually didn't include end notes, but he prefaced every chapter with this note:

before we start: this is ONLY about ran and jackie as MY original characters. do not imply it’s about anyone else. if you're really worried, here's more info about boundaries.

Contents

Quotes

“You know,” Jackie whispers, his eyelids lowering serenely, “they say creatures with green eyes creep out of the ground to bring an end to the world.”

History

Origins

Relaxxattack was, and still is, a popular MCYT Tumblr user. He's known for his fanart and meta posts about the Dream SMP. He was primarily a Bench Trio fan, though he posted about other people and characters often. When he began writing Bishop's Knifetrick, he created official art to entice more people to read it. He would often answer questions and talk about the fic on Tumblr.

Rise to popularity

The fic got popular on Tumblr around the release of chapter 4. When chapter 6 was released, it spread to Twitter. This is notable due to the rift between MCYT Tumblr and MCYT Twitter- many users on the separate platforms don't see eye-to-eye. Still, people on Tumblr loved the fic and wanted it to gain more attention. People on Twitter initially enjoyed the fic, creating a sea of fanart for Ran and Jackie.

Accusations of boundary breaking

As it got more popular, it began to receive more backlash. People, particularly those on Twitter, argued that it broke boundaries. Ranboo and Tubbo, the actors for the characters Ran and Jackie, weren't comfortable with shipping, and since Ran and Jackie got very little development, that shipping the characters meant trying to ship the actors in an undercover way.

Relaxxattack disagreed, saying that since Ran and Jackie were only shown on-screen for about 15 minutes, and got much more development throughout the fic, they were practically his own, original characters. Additionally, Ranboo has said that he is okay with shipping of his character(s), and Tubbo has said that he is okay with any fancontent so long as it's not NSFW. He made sharable banners and images reiterating this point. Fans of the fic made their own images in a similar vein defending it.

Because of this controversy, the fic was rebranded as a work of original fiction.

Antisemitism

On October 11, 2021, Tumblr user genderfluidtechnoblade made a post detailing how the plot of Bishop's Knifetrick includes antisemitic tropes, specifically blood libel. The post has been transcribed here:

Anonymous asked: sorry what does the plot of knife trick being “blood libel esque” mean? I tried to look it up but was still confused

genderfluidtechnoblade responds: the mystery plot revolves around disappearing children of miners. the plot twist revealed in the latest chapter is that the powerful people in the city, the king, the advisors, watson, etc, are behind these disappearances. there are also implications that the children are being used to get more of a specific resource (and, in the absolute worst case scenario that is being set up, being used as the resource, since its specifically mentioned that dreamon fossil’s bone marrow create the resource, and the skeletons are the same size as kids, and are mythologized to possess people). the fact that its children, specifically, being kidnapped by “the elites” in order to generate resources is very reminescent of traditional blood libel, in which there was fear mongering that jewish people were going to kidnap christian children for their blood/youth/other nefarious purposes, especially with the themes of dark magic and possession. it is not outright blood libel, notably because the villains are not actually jewish, but it does pull heavily on those themes of blood libel to create the main twist of the story. this is not a one off joke or detail, this is the plot twist of the entire story. thats what i mean by “blood libel esque” ... It’s comparable to something that serious because it invokes those themes in order to portray its villain. at some point a decision was made that the way to make the villains most villainous was by pulling on sentiment closely tied to blood libel- i do not think this was intentional or malicious on behalf of the author, antisemitism is deeply ingrained in media and society and comes out in every day life even unintentionally. however, it is through things like innocuous stories that these ideas become more and more pervasive. i know jewish people who read knifetrick and were made deeply uncomfortable by the implications of the story even before the final twist. it’s dangerous to imply that things can’t be deeply harmful just because they are seen as silly or fine- minecraft itself was made by an antisemite and the villagers, yes, resemble antisemitic ideas of jewish people. also, if you want the minecraft fanfiction to be taken seriously, sometimes they deal with serious ideas, and can have serious implications.

While the initial post didn't get much attention, the author was sent an ask^{[Dead link]} regarding it.

Anonymous asked, for as long as i've been in the dsmp fandom you've been notoriously shitty not just with your takes or maintagging crit with no crit tags or cc hate but just to other fans lol. so yeah no surprise that you write something offensive and antisemitic and then double down lol

relaxxattack responds: HUH ??

The tags read:

#none of this is... even true #i had literally never even heard of b**** l**** before today #like i couldnt even do that Subconsciously because i DIDNT KNOW WHAT IT WAS #are you guys just throwing any bad words you can think of at me at this point? #and i hardly ever even interact with other people #especially in a negative or argumentative way? #i just. dont even know what to say at this point. #negative #discourse

Deletion

The fic was deleted shortly after the ask was sent, and the author left Tumblr. He would later begin posting drawings and textposts on occasion, but he stopped responding to asks and his activity dropped.

He temporarily put the fic back up so that Tubbo could read it, as seen in the tags of this post:

knifetrick is also down; sorry about that one.

The tags read:

#edit: if youre curious abt why its temporarily back up; it's for tubbo; itll probably be back up for a while #but still may go down permanently in the future

The work returned to AO3 at an unknown later date.

Fanworks and Fan Activity

Related Fanworks

• "You know," Jackie whispers... by [especdreamy] (September 16, 2021)
• jackie brackett + outfits by [b1rdza] (October 6, 2021)
• Bishop's Knifetrick Chapter VII by [time-speculo] (October 8, 2021)