Bishop's Knifetrick

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:
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:
==Contents==
===Summary===
===Writing Style===
===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:
While the initial post didn't get much attention, the author was sent an ask regarding it.
The tags read:
===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:
The tags read:
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)
==References==
Category:2021 Fanfiction
Category:Judaism & Fandom
Category:MCYT Fanfiction
Category:Original Fiction
Category:Original Slash
Category:Dream SMP