#and it's all from Tommy's POV during exile

[bleue-flora]

I honestly don't know if you already talked about this so sorry if this is a repeat of a topic, but something I always found interesting about c!Dream's character during the exile arc is how it feels like, at least to me, that Dream is less so using his own manipulative tactics on c!Tommy and is more so mimicking to behavior that c!Wilbur used to control Tommy is Pogtopia. The isolation, the feeding of mistrust, the pushing that they are the only person Tommy can trust, it all feels so.

It feels like Dream saw how Wilbur kept Tommy "under control" during Pogtopia and thought that was the only way to get Tommy to chill tf out. Though it didn't really work considering the only reason the things that Wilbur did worked was because they had a deep emotional connection that Dream simply did not have. Which he also seemingly took into account with him blowing up and reversing Tommy's progress each day, no doubt knowing that Tommy would absolutely try to kill him the first chance he got, he didn't have the connection that Wilbur did to make Tommy hesitate. Hell, I'm pretty sure the similarity is even drawn in "Hitting on 16" when Tommy is questioning Wilbur about his plans.

In general I think people (specifically c!Tommy apologists (Which I am but I can safely say I watched more then his POV, so I never got to the extent of saying he did nothing wrong)) skip over how much Wilbur and the Pogtopia vs. Manburg arc impacted the Exile arc. Including both Dream and Tommy's characters. They act like exile was the start of Tommy's mental state going down hill when it was more implied that it was before, exile made it worse but he was always going to spiral.

I think something that furthers this for me is that, and correct me if I'm wrong, I honestly don't remember Dream ever using the tactics he used on Tommy on anyone else. The behavior Dream showed in exile seemed specific to Tommy. There's also the argument to be had that I genuinely don't think Dream knew Tommy was already spiraling before exile and would get to the point of being suicidal, but to keep this ask from getting longer then it already is I will just leave that thought there.

I could be completely wrong about this though and be loosing my mind, or misreading/remembering things, but I do find the possibility interesting, and I remember thinking this even back when I was watching the exile arc for the first time.

-date: Dec 9, 2024-

So I think the reason I delayed responding to this was because I planned on rewatching more exile and some Pogtopia to compare, but to be honest ever since recent events it’s been hard to do much lore rewatching, so I figured while on the topic I could respond, especially since the ask I just answered also mentions this manipulation thing (maybe you’re the same person, I don’t know<3).

I’m not sure I see it but again I haven’t watched the lore in a bit and also Wilbur and Tommy’s dynamic isn’t really my area of expertise. But I will say is that I don’t think it’s the emotional connection that makes Wilbur’s influence more successful than Dream’s. It’s that Wilbur and Tommy have a closer and better relationship in general. A relationship that Dream could never quite seem to make with Tommy for varying reasons. I do think Dream appreciated or perhaps envied the way Tommy listened to Wilbur even back in the beginning, but I also think we are maybe assuming Dream has more of an inside scoop into Wilbur and Tommy’s relationship than he did. I’ve said this before, but it’s important to realize that Dream doesn’t get all the conversations and such we see, so his perception of Wilbur and Tommy’s relationship is likely further from the truth then people think.

So I’m not sure Dream would have the insight into Wilbur’s manipulative tactics, though to be honest I’m not sure I remember specific instances of what you are referring to, so it’s hard to say. I’ll also say that because of Dream’s more logical mind and Tommy’s more emotional, Dream could never connect to Tommy in as strong of a way as Wilbur because Wilbur more so understood how Tommy operated. Plus Wilbur used his words, whereas, Dream used his actions.

The other problem with Exile is I think it was a mix of things. That there was a goal of reform, a goal of manipulating Tommy into liking Dream, and an emotional element. In some ways, Exile was revenge for Dream. Over and over, especially in the earlier days, Tommy took Dream’s things and other people’s, so it’s only fitting for Dream to take his. Then Tommy also was responsible for him losing his friends by blackmailing him, forcing Dream to denounce caring. So, Dream makes sure Tommy feels just as alone as him. But then I think there is an element of Dream just wanting to be Tommy’s friend and get along, creating those wholesome moments.

In addition, there is a teaching element, where just like we see Philza encourage Tommy to burn stone over and over, Dream is making Tommy gather resources over and over. Because Tommy puts too much value in items, but also now Tommy can know how it feels to work hard for your stuff and how frustrating it is when people take it and force you to replenish. Now he’ll know how it feels when he took the diamonds from Alyssa, and resources from Tubbo and Dream, over and over.

But it was also a protection, Dream couldn’t let Tommy become too powerful otherwise he’d go against him, in the same way he couldn’t let Tommy hang out with his friends too much because they will convince Tommy to go against him. Dream needed Tommy to learn not to keep stealing and destroying stuff and not be so opposed to him. I don’t think he ever thought he’d replace Wilbur though and I am honestly not sure what you mean by “Which he also seemingly took into account with him blowing up and reversing Tommy's progress each day, no doubt knowing that Tommy would absolutely try to kill him the first chance he got, he didn't have the connection that Wilbur did to make Tommy hesitate”

I will say like I’ve said before, I don’t think Dream knew how bad Tommy’s mental health during Exile was, nor how much Tommy hated him. I think both Tommy’s almost suicide and Tommy’s willingness to kill Dream permanently without a second thought in the staged finale, came as a surprise.

You are totally right though, people do often blame Exile and Dream in Exile for Tommy’s decline when it started way before that. Pogtopia and people being against him as he’s left in exile, started that seed of - everyone hates you. Then you have Techno betraying him and Wilbur dying, which starts him on a path of declining health. Something he probably blames Dream for (… huh that’s probably why he burned George’s house isn’t it…. - you hurt the person I cared about and destroyed my home, well I’ll do the same to the person you care about…). Anyways, as you said, I think Tommy was always going to spiral, especially after Wilbur’s death but certainly his best friend betraying him and Exile only made things worse…

As far as whether Dream ever having similar behavior to Exile, it’s hard to say. Like I said above, I think multiple things led to Exile being a specific hell for Tommy. But also, Dream has shown sort of similar behavior before. Like towards the beginning before Tommy, Dream teams up with Sapnap to kill George, specifically to destroy George’s items as Dream felt like George was abusing his powered over others (because he was killing them a lot). Additionally, while it’s hard to compare Daedalus and Exile, since the Revengers were the ones to take everything from Sam, not Dream. There is a day when Dream doesn’t show up, which could be looked at as similar to the day Dream does the same to Tommy. Dream also uses that friendly - here use my trident (I made you a cake) type tactics. But since I think part of exile was an emotional reaction it’s why we never see a real repeat of that behavior, besides with clingy in both finales. Plus, strategically I think Dream learns from Exile and is unlikely to repeat something that clearly didn’t work….

Anyways… those are some thoughts. I could change my mind later but as I remember things at the moment, I don’t really think it’s true.

[keyslox]

have you ever noticed how part of c!jack’s character is he is obscure and nobody really knows him and how in the fandom he is also obscure and nobody really knows him

Jack Manifold was never really given the time of day. Sure, he had a small part in the server (ultimately the one who ended the whole thing), but his presence was not respected all that much. Placed into the lowest rank of L’Manberg’s cabinet, killed by Wilbur Soot for ‘not being seen’. He never got a REAL apology for that, by the way. I will stand by the fact that Wilbit’s apology to Jack was manipulative, half-assed, and more for himself than Jack’s wellbeing. It was well before the ‘Apology arc’ and THAT IN OF ITSELF shows just how little it actually meant to Wilbur. He was just doing it to make himself feel better and didn’t actually have Jack’s feelings in mind.

The biggest thing I see going around is Tommy being excused for what he did to Jack. Killing him when Jack went to visit him in the Nether during his Exile. Tommy has trauma. We all know that. He was a victim to extreme manipulation and abuse and a slew of other things. Yet he blatantly ignores every attempt, denies and/or doesn’t fully grasp that he did what he did. Which I can understand because the dude went through severe trauma, but that’s not an excuse. He still needs to take the accountability for his actions.

Jack deserves so much more than he’s ever gotten and it SHOWS. He literally wants friends. That’s it. He wants friend and companionship and he wants what he THOUGHT he had. Because he never actually had it. If he had it Wilbur wouldn’t have killed him, Tommy would actually listen, and he would be shown an ounce of respect for his own traumas and hardships when he tries to talk about it all. All everyone does is dismiss, downplay, and invalidate c!Jack’s pain. That’s a big reason why he’s the way he is! Every other attempt to let himself express his issues ends in him feeling worse about himself.

And we’ve seen time and time again that everyone else Jack tries to talk to and vent to takes Tommy’s side! (Ex: Puffy) There’s bias that Tommy can do no wrong and is the ‘savior’ of the smp. But even if he’s the ‘main protagonist’ doesn’t diminish he causes pain.

They give the excuse that Tommy was a child, that children should be protected and yada yada. Jack was more-or-less a child when he first joined, too! He should have the same excuses, the same treatment as all the other kids on the smp but he doesn’t because he was left alone and had to grow up faster.

He didn’t have anyone to lean against, so he just never let himself fall. And when he inevitably did no one cared or batted an eye because no one was there. He died 3 times and no one batted an eye.

The fandom is so bias sometimes. I’m not huge on DAMP fanfics that involve Jack because they mischaracterize him so much. Put him as a bully in School AUs, make him mean and rude for no reason. The reason in canon is because no one gave a single fuck about him. (not including Niki) Jack had a reason for being ‘cruel’, no one else did. It comes with the fact that Jack’s POV just isn’t as watched, so people don’t know his side of things. But what bothers me is that it feels like fans don’t even try to see stuff from his point of view. He was abused, manipulated, killed, and used in his own right. If everyone else gets excuses for the shit they did, he deserves it too.

Below is how I interpreted Jack’s ending, and how, despite everything he’s gone through, his character gets some sort of ending that isn’t completely angsty. I acknowledge that Jack isn’t the morally-perfect character, that he was fueled by anger and rage. He had a slight victim complex. But from a more basic pov, and for the fans who don’t really understand his character, I think he was redemptive. In his own right.

REDEMPTION:

From its literal definition Redemption is “An act of redeeming or atoning for a fault or mistake, or the state of being redeemed. deliverance; rescue.” The state of being redeemed comes in many shapes and sizes. Actions and words big and small. For some it may take great showings of purpose and selflessness. For others it can be as simple as “I’m sorry.”

Someone can go their whole entire lives fighting with something they ultimately in the end agree with. A lot of it is a matter of perspective. Jack only had one perspective.

Jack was alone for most of his life on the dsmp. Yes he had friends in the beginning but wars and betrayal had him distancing himself and trying to find ways to fix it. None ever worked. Because he was alone. When you only work with one perspective you don’t understand the other side, and how it might actually clear things up and switch your own views.

It only took Jack a matter of minutes after arguing with Tubbo for him to realize he didn’t have the whole picture. Someone so close to Tommy, someone who WAS there to see the other side of things. Someone Jack trusts and respects, who’d he call a friend, to listen and then fight him on his thoughts even if it was in the form of an argument. Though he fucked up and killed everyone, I think his actions of still attempting to save Tommy with Tubbo have given him a bit of redemption. Not all, everyone has faults. But he was on the path to healing when he died. If only for a few minutes.

Jack died by his own hands trying to right his wrong. If that’s not a symbolic Jack ending I don’t really know what is.

[swordfright]

I'd love to hear your structural hot takes

I already rambled a lot about this here, but alright okay yes I got more. I am here to talk about bullshit and nonsense after all 😤

If we're still talking about how DSMP is a prime example of New Media, and various frameworks you might use to understand it as an example of New Media, then I think it could be useful to bring up the concept of the violence hub.

Before I get into all that I need to define another term: rhizomatic storytelling, which means a narrative that is decentralized, nonlinear, and intricately networked. Does DSMP fit into this category? I would say so, even though it doesn't necessarily fulfill all criteria. It's definitely decentralized (I've already talking a bit about how it's difficult to pin down the parameters of the "core text" when it comes to MCYTRP) and it's definitely a network of little stories coming together to form a cohesive(ish) narrative. But one thing DSMP isn't is nonlinear. It's a very linear story, in the same way that professional wrestling (which is famously fictionalized) is very linear. It's been pointed out by fans that the storylines in pro wrestling pass at the same rate as time passes in the real world - which is pretty unique! You can't say that about most stories, even most forms of serial fiction! But, interestingly, DSMP is the same: time in the story passes at more or less the same rate as time passes IRL, with the exception of periods spent in limbo. This raises some interesting questions about who determines linearity in a prosumptive (co-created by writers and audiences) piece of media. If you're looking at DSMP from the perspective of the CCs, it's a linear narrative in the ways I've just described. But if you look at it from the perspective of the audience (who are given the option to switch between streams, watch live, watch VODs afterwards, watch VODs out-of-order, or refuse to watch some streams/VODs altogether), then it can be - and often is - a very non linear story. In a straightforward narrative where the creators create and the consumers consume, this isn't even a question. But in the case of something like DSMP, which is a collaboration by creators and audiences, those lines of authority blur and we're left wondering whose timeline we're on.

So let's say, for the sake of this argument, that DSMP is a rhizomatic story. It doesn't check off all the boxes, but I would still say it qualifies for reasons I hope I've outlined above in at least a semi-comprehensible way. Well, there's this framework that's been developed for understanding these types of non-linear, decentralized stories: the violence hub.

The violence hub was proposed as a way of furthering our understanding of these participatory “multithreaded” stories that offer many voices at once without giving any particular one of those voices the final word.

Personally, I think DSMP is sort of the perfect example of a violence hub story, obviously because of the way it's constructed (talked about this a lot already here so I won't rehash it rn) but also because, quite frankly, it is a violent story. DSMP is bleak as fuck. Warfare, conflict, and abuse are core motifs. Like, even in a fandom as divided as this one, it's not controversial to say that DSMP is a story that's fixated on suffering, and that fixation is one of its main selling points. Not all fans are interested in those parts of the story, of course, but I think it's safe to say a lot of fans find DSMP's treatment of suffering pretty compelling. This is why people are insane about Exile and Pandora and Pogtopia and, and, and. You get the picture.

The violence hub is also a useful way of looking at not just how the story is structured, but how it is consumed. When fans talk about a violent incident in the story, whether it's Exile or c!Dream's imprisonment or something else, oftentimes we talk about these events in relation to other characters' perspectives and POVs. What's c!Tubbo up to during c!Tommy's exile? Who does or doesn't try to visit Logstedshire, and at what points in the Exile timeline? What's c!Dream doing during the Exile period when he's not at Logstedshire? This interactivity with the incident (Exile) through various other POVs deepens viewers' understandings of that incident, what it means to the characters involved, what it means in the larger narrative, and most importantly - what it means to us, the viewers. The same thing could be said about any period that qualifies as a "violent incident" described in the article screenshotted above. Take Pandora, for instance: how many times have you heard someone say "You really need to watch c!Sapnap's prison visit to get a sense of what it was like," or "c!Techno's prison podcast is vital to understanding what happens in Pandora," or something else to that effect. We all have specific streams we see as crucial puzzle pieces, but we don't all agree on what those streams are. And, depending on which streams you see as vital, your idea of what went down during a particular violence hub incident may be very different from my perception of that event, and vice-versa. Be that as it may, consuming the story this way, rather than in the form of a traditional linear narrative, allows viewers to come to more nuanced understandings of not just the incident in question, but also why the incident happened, what other events led up to it, the later impacts it had on the story, how character relationships and dynamics may have shifted as a result of the incident, etc. The decentralized nature of this structure enables an understanding of the story that appropriately accounts for its complexity.

Now that all that's out of the way, I want to talk about the structure of the violence hub in relation to audience expectations. When the finale aired, I was pretty confused by a lot of folks' reactions, partly because of how I perceived the DSMP and how I see its structure interacting with its themes. To me, DSMP is a story largely about cyclical violence, so an ending where c!Tommy (a main character, driving force for the narrative, and sometimes the protagonist depending on who you ask) chooses to put an end to that cycle made sense to me. I never saw the finale as being about an abuse victim forgiving his abuser, I saw it as being about an abuse victim purposefully stepping back, seeing the cycle of violence for what it is, and choosing to opt out. This is a fairly unpopular interpretation of the finale, but it's one that I stand by because it's firmly grounded in the text: the dialogue, the scenecraft, the structure. Up until the finale, c!Tommy perceives the DSMP as a linear, centralized story - his own! He acts accordingly, rarely stopping to consider consequences or other characters' perspectives. When he's sent to limbo in the finale, c!Tommy is suddenly able to see into c!Dream's past memories from c!Dream's perspective. In this moment, c!Tommy's experience of the narrative ceases to be linear and centralized; in this moment, he is experiencing the story in the same way that we, the audience have been experiencing the story. c!Tommy, placed in the audience's shoes, is presented with what is essentially a "branch" to the violence hub that is Exile, that is Pandora, that is the aftermath of both of those arcs. Upon seeing that "branch" (the memory), c!Tommy is given context for some of the events that have happened on the server. This newfound context allows him to understand his own story as a part of the stories of the people around him. This newfound context enables him to understand the story in a way that accounts for its complexities. He doesn't forgive c!Dream, but he is able to recognize the cycle of violence and choose not to participate anymore.

So, back to the thing I said about structure and audience expectations. As I mentioned, a lot of fans hated the finale for a lot of reasons. It wasn't to everyone's taste, and that's fine. But I would like to posit that one reason people didn't like the finale was because the rhizomatic structure of the story (which c!Tommy becomes aware of) subverted their own expectations about storytelling in general and this story in particular. I'd argue that a lot of people hated the finale because they were still clinging to the possibility of a non-rhizomatic narrative: one that has a traditional beginning/middle/end, one that has clear heroes and villains, one in which unambiguous good vanquishes unambiguous evil. Which isn't a bad thing to want, it's just...not what DSMP is, or ever was.

[mellorphic]

do you have any songs that remind you of dsmp characters? if so, please gimme

(also what is your favorite song/band/artist in general)

Tysm for the ask! I could literally talk about this for hours on end.

Favourite song/band/artist changes all the goddamn time but right now Scum by Lovejoy

In terms of characters you are opening a rabbit hole for me, buckle in.

Tommy

What Can I Do if The Fire Goes Out? By Gang Of Youths fits his exile arc, his relationship with Dream at the time as well as grieving Wilbur - “Do I throw my hopes in the fire? Do I throw my clothes in the fire? Do those things grow in the fire, or burn just to keep me compliant?”

Worried About Ray by The Hoosiers gives Pogtopia!Tommy vibes, with the way he wanted to protect L’Manberg and protect Wilbur - “the truth be told, the truth be told, I’m worried about the future holds, the future holds. I’m so tired of being worried about Ray.”

A lot of AURORA songs give me Tommy vibes but especially It Happened Quiet which reminds me of his third death. She uses a lot of nature related metaphors in her songs which I think fit his character - “Eyes blue and hollow as it rains against their will”

Good Grief by Bastille is such a c!tommy song about grief and how he processes people dying/leaving. I can’t emphasise this enough - “You might have to excuse me, I’ve lost control of all of my senses. You might have to excuse me, I’ve lost control of all of my words.”

Wilbur

Ramblings of a Lunatic by Bears In Trees, specifically for the election era but probably fits most of his L’Manberg arc - “Cause all my friends are dying, some faster than the others. I’m trying to distract myself from the fears that I’ve discovered.”

Youth by Daughter reminds me of the legacy that Wilbur left behind once he died on Nov 16th after blowing up L’Manberg. It’s such a sympathetic song, too - “Collecting pictures from the flood that wrecked this home, it was a flood that wrecked this home, and you caused it”

Saint Bernard by Lincoln fits Revivedbur so so much, but specifically in Hitting On 16, his relationships with Quackity, Tommy, and how he felt about the way people treated Dream (read: how he felt they treated him) at this time - “I said ‘make me love myself so that I might love you’, don’t make me a liar, cause I swear to god, when I said it I thought it was true.”

So many Lucy Spraggan songs?? It’s so hard to pick just one but I’m gonna go with Roots for reflecting on the early days of the L’Manberg era - “I bought a big house in the country, I live there now, does nothing for me. Bought a fast car, white and sporty, when I look back I was pretty poorly.”

Niki

Tongues and Teeth by The Crane Wives as a puffychu song during Niki’s rocket duo arc? Pain. Pain and suffering - “Abandon all your stupid dreams about the girl I could’ve been, my dear. Cuz in the night I know you burn with feelings I cannot return, my dear. Oh, my dear.”

The Calling by The Amazing Devil is such a Doomsday Niki song about her looking back on her life and who she used to be - “I look into the water and see a face I don’t understand. We’re both unwanted daughters, but there’s more than water in these autumn hands.”

Moonsickness by Penelope Scott is literally Manberg Niki and how she was trying so hard to fight for her home but it was futile - “And in your blood you know what’s right, and in your bones you know what’s wrong, and in your throat you know that you’re lying to kids and you know nobody belongs in this hell”

ilomilo by Billie Eilish about post-nov-16th rain duo from Niki’s pov - “I tried not to upset you, let you rescue me the day I met you, I just wanted to protect you, but now I’ll never get to.”

I also think that The Call by Regina Spektor fits all of the L’Manbergians and what they value and their experiences during and after that arc - “And then that word grew louder and louder, till it was a battle cry. I’ll come back, when you call me. No need to say goodbye.”

I’ve been saying since 2021 that The Horror and The Wild by The Amazing Devil is literally Phil and Wilbur talking in the button room, with Phil being the part of Madeline Hyland and Wilbur being Joey Batey - “Think of all the horrors that I promised you I’d bring, I promise you, they’ll sing of every time you pass your fingers through my hair and call me child - witness me, old man, I am the wild.”

If you’d like me to assign songs to specific duos, arcs or characters I can 100% do that! Or if you want a more in depth analysis of any of these songs, I can do that to (this is open for anyone to ask me about, not just Mayrine!)

[denscani]

I think it's fair to assume Dog Teeth likely won't be updated again, which is completely understandable, but i'm curious if you're willing to share what you had planned for your c!Tommy and c!Dream prison fic, set in the 'verse?

i technically have most of it in a draft.

the basics are:

it's dream pov. (therefore was unmotivated to ever finish it at the dsmp height/popularity band it used to be in). involves lot of introspection/inner ruminations.

it goes like canon, where tommy gets stuck in the cell with dream. sam has a retractable leash system for dream that attaches to the back wall and near the food chute. length of chain controlled by a remote-like device. (real chained dog vibes, mostly because I think dt!sam is also kind of a freak like that.)

...and tw here for basics of some of dream's thought patterns ...

while stuck in the cell w/tommy, dream basically thinks about:

a) how much he fucking hates tommy for being annoying/loud/in his space/stuck with him, getting him stuck there in the prison, how everyone is suddenly on tommys side when no one even blinked when he disappeared/got exiled at first, they all found him equally a nuisance to some degree, etc, etc.

b)thinks about how everyone looked at him on the beach, how he knows they want to ask why but his only real reasoning is because he could and because he knew no one could stop him. And, to dream, it was the most effective/fast/efficient (read: entertaining) way to keep tommy in line, and quiet, and semi listening to him for once. like grabbing an insect or weird fucked lizard or something that's been underfoot for so long everyone else ignored it, but you stuck it in a jar and rattled it around hard enough it stopped annoying you. and then kept shaking the jar cause you found it funny and amusing and it was something to do when you're bored.

c) thinks about the past and tommys evolution from burning down georges place to being slowly pressed under his boot to suddenly being gone and then seeing how tommys changed from being in the arctic and with techno. physical and emotional differences, like tommy is full height and tall as or taller than him now, filled out muscle wise--> techno isn't gonna let Tommy sit around and not do chores or mine shit with/ for him ---> dream convinces himself that yeah, well, tommy should thank him then. because dream doesn't think tommy would have been taken in unless he really was crawling up to technos porch like some wounded, skittish animal. annoying and loud, obnoxious pre-exile tommy would have been kicked out day one.

---

outside of the thoughts and ideas dream is cooking up and reflecting on in his brain dome, tommy is stubborn and angry and lashes out the more buttons dream pushes from across the cell (verbally).

basically it's like two different kinds of fucked up dogs put into a small cell and the lack of civility they have for each other is like asking two food aggressive mutts to share a single steak. This includes showing lots of teeth, and using them.

--> and before tommy eventually gets out of the prison cell, he starts making some revelations about dream being pretty top shelf miserable and sort of stuck in time (and mindset), and makes the assertion to dream that he'll be "moving the fuck on with his life" (basically tommy's exact words I penned in the draft), and dream wont be there to see it, etc etc.

(and, because this happens through dream's pov and eyes, dream goes back into stewing and ruminating once tommy leaves. dream thinks about the first day he went to visit tommy in exile and while nothing happens (no armor taken, no items broken, nothing yet), he thinks about how much tommy looked up to him during the moments between the anger. joking around still, the piss sheep, setting up tRent, etc, like dream was someone tommy trusted intrinsically, despite everything. and dream couldn't stop making the comparison in his head to how a dog fed enough times looks at the hand that feeds...and trusts it--needs it-- implicitly.)

Something like that anyways...

[skittzdaskittle]

Au update

This is now The Dsmp Chay and Lullah au

It's definitely changed quite a lot from this initial idea, especially with the help of mental animatics XD

Some story beats are still the same, like Chay wanting to be a protector of the weak who looks up to Phil and Techno, who still tries to kill Dream, but for a very different reason

And Tallulah also making sure people feel less alone and giving them flowers, and being Jack's closet friend

But certain things happen earlier, like Chay and Phil arriving together after Will unnecessarily "sacrificed" himself in the middle of a scuffle around the time in the og timeline where Will blows up L'manburg

And Dream here doesn't mask his true intentions as much is is more openly cruel, mostly because of Tallulah (Tommy is still a scapegoat but not as much as he was in og universe)

I think for once I'll draw the scenes i have in my head XD

Now it's time for the playlist I made for au specifically for animatics

The video above is to establish vibes and relationships

First section is Will and Chay

Second is Lullah and Fundy

Then just some other general scenes from the au

With each character section it follows a pattern, the journey they go through, an animatic for their sibling, interacting with Wimblr

President Lullah time :]

Definitely drawing some scenes from this

Oh and Jack and Tommy are in exile despite Tallulah's pleading :D

Dw, he had Lullah when Will was revived :]

Life still not great, but at least his sister is there

Just president and vice president things

Father daughter bonding time :]

I know i probably could've just used the audio from the video this animatic is from, but eh, I like da animatic

Pretty self-explanatory, just need to replace a few words and it would probably be a conversation they'd have

In general....

Chayanne time

The first main section is basically childhood stuff and for the most part it's just au events, but at like, the last major drop, I think at the part of the animatic after all the soul mates during the instrumental, I got some spicy angst for y'all, just because their inclusion makes things overall better, doesn't mean they can't have Epic Trauma™️

Kinda thinking I might change this one because it feels more og Will then this version, which more cold, rather then straight unhinged, but still fits the general character for now

Chay....the family hero....trying to make things better for everyone, especially Tallulah

The bit before the "go ahead and cry little boy" part is to Wilbur btw

And the part about the parents, just swap the dad with Mumza (she did leave them, even if it was for an important reason), and the mom with Phil 👍

LULLAH GIVE PEOPLE FLOWERS :D

Lullah, Eret, Jack, and Niki friendship for the win 💪

Pov: Lullah asks Techno to teach her how to fight cus Will sidelined her to "protect her" because she was "too precious" when he would send Tommy and Fundy into war (death fam didn't find Tubbo in this au)

I wonder how Fundy and Tommy feel about this :]

And yes, at the end, Will mentions Sally :]]

Anyway, that's the video limit, and all the major lore stuff, but there is one more important one I'll put in a reblog to this reblog 👍

qsmp/dsmp Brothers au

I have created and drawn an au where Chyanne and Tallulah lived in the dsmp 👀

Chyanne is Wilbur's (biological) twin brother and Tallulah is Fundy's younger sister 👍

There's a lot of potential for this au

I'm calling it (dsmp) Brothers au, because the song fits their relationships very well:

Chyanne came over to the server (Philza style) a little after doomsday started and Tallulah was here since the birth of L'manburg (and takes on traits more from her mom's side, if you couldn't tell XD)

Overall compared to dsmp normally, they make it a way better place

Chyanne is an overall protector and definitely has beef with Quackity, mostly for Las Nevadas. He almost killed Dream when he tried hunting down Tommy after he escaped prison. Chyanne generally keeps watch to make sure nothing happens

Tallulah tries to make things a little better for everyone, she postponed Technoblade attacking and summoning withers and tried to ease the tension between the two sides when wilbur blew up l'manburg, occasionally snuck over to Tommy's exile to check up on him, unfortunately Dream found out and threatened her. She gives specifically colored flowers to people she cares about or feels they don't have anyone, she's given a flower to Eret and is Jack's closet friend

They're both very close to their brothers

[pixiemage]

If I do ever finish my DSMP/L'Manburg parody of American Pie (from Tommy's POV) would y'all wanna listen? Because god knows the lyrics have been rotating in my brain for months and after what I've heard about the finale, I think we need some quality content in the DSMP fandom

[robotic-poet]

The aftermath.

[bumblebeerror]

OHKAY. Deep breath. I’m doing it. I need like, an essay outline.

So first off, Star Wars (the trilogies) are extreeeeemely compressed sets of events. As mentioned, the Clone Wars animated series helps to show us JUST how compressed, and a lot of STUFF happens in this set of media and the timeline is not well established if you aren’t paying attention. Like we meet Qui Gon Jinn and he dies years later in the same movie.

DSMP is also a really Dense story because of how many POVs we get, so everything I say is incredibly surface level and generalizing when it comes to broad story beats. But here goes.

A political drama.

1) The good guys are questionable, doing things they shouldn’t be if we want to call them classically Good™️. 2) in the background, there is an evil force working in secret to maneuver the other pieces about the board, caaaarefully undermining the very fabric of the society they’ve built until the card tower can be toppled with ease. 3) These moves were made years, decades in advance, by an evil man with two faces, someone who claims to be a good man fighting for freedom and order, but who has been plotting to sweep the rug out from under it all since before he was raised to his position of power. 4) The bad guys™️ claim to protect certain parties in exchange for coin or loyalty, but ultimately do not care for the fate of their charges. 5) He sows distrust among the Good Guys™️, pits them against each other, sabotages their entire war, and decimates them.

Like. LIKE. LISTEN. Is this NOT a similar story.

1) L’Manberg and later Pogtopia are both questionable entities, but ultimately portrayed as the good guys the same way the Jedi as peacekeepers are doing questionable things during the clone wars

2+3+5) Dream originally comes to an agreement with Wilbur, and Wilbur’s ousting comes as a result of his own hubris; but Dream DID unban Schlatt permanently to allow it to happen. And he does things like this throughout the story, going after Tommy for destroying the community house and then quickly following it with the obby wall when Tubbo doesn’t exile him. Palpatine actively convinces Padme Amidala to question Chancellor Valorum’s competence, directly landing Palpatine the spot as Supreme Chancellor, and THEN he secures what is essentially a dictatorship during the Clone Wars over all the republic star systems. AND the Sepratists planned in advance by commissioning the Clones and embedding order 66 into them. Are you seeing my vision

4) Dream and Co repeatedly work like mercs, providing Pogtopia with aid, then working to protect Schlatt, Saving Techno from execution. You could argue that their actions, in fact, caused several of these merc assignments. The sepratists pull off a few different blockades on planets to force loyalty, and ultimately lose them because they were really only there for a resource, which once purged they abandon the planet.

Like this is very simplified because I’m. Sleep deprived but are you SEEING

But also like. Watching the Star Wars The Clone Wars animated series is a new wrench because we WATCH Anakin be turned to the dark side. And it’s played very straight because it’s for kids but it’s also… fascinating. They make the change believable. The Jedi serve as generals for the Clone Army, and we become attached to a lot of them, Rex, Fives, Echo, Waxer, Dogma, Jesse, Cody, Wrecker, Heavy. Anakin watches a lot of them die in the war, he does a lot of distinctly not peacemaker things. And although the Jedi order is influenced by the Senate and Palpatine, those instances still matter - we hear Anakin openly talk about how the Jedi aren’t true commanders because their honor prevents them from making some decisions, that the Jedi are no longer peacekeeping, and he’s RIGHT. And the fact that he’s right is so palpable that the show cannot effectively deny it.

And I find that fascinating! What else don’t we know about the Separatists because the story is told by the Republic? It’s a story and of course we can’t explore it well, but we meet separatists who aren’t evil, we see that there’s an entire separatist senate - and none of them appear evil. And we watch the republican senate make some really awful, harmful choices.

It rings like the difference between any one DSMP character’s POV and the perception of them from another, if a little shallower because we can’t actually see what’s happening with the separatist side to convince the planets in their senate to remain with them. This part is tenuous but I desperately want dsmp to teach people that like villians can have reasons that even make sense and storylines and innocents can be convinced by bad guys genuinely and. Babbling.

I just. Ough. This has been bouncing around my brain SO LONG and it’s SO STUPID but it’s OUT and maybe now I can sleep 😭

Would it be slightly too insane of me to write an entire long post about the similar story beats in DSMP and Star Wars and how viewing Star Wars the same way one would view DSMP from multiple POVs creates a richer, more complex story?

Would that be just slightly too unhinged or can you see my vision

[cmyknoise]

I don't know about others but the reason I didn't listen to "you are a person techno" it's because it felt empty, like it had no meaning and it was just static. I don't know if that is actually true (I don't understand his character very well and I can't get inside his mind) but it didn't feel like it (but maybe if he were to say it again I would listen and believe)

in my opinion it's the 'i'm a person part' from techno that is empty. and techno's pov was the one i watched first on doomsday.

techno holds people like dream on a higher step than tommy, despite dream being the one to view techno like an actual weapon.

tommy has treated techno like a person far more than dream ever has, and dream isn't even subtle about it. he only ever talks to techno when he needs something or wants to use him because he's powerful.

on november 16th dream was in part reason for techno setting off the withers, as he riled him up in chat and egged him on. he only saved techno's life on his execution date because he knew he could use the favor against techno (something he would then hold over his head for the next few months by saying 'no i'll save it'). on doomsday, dream only went along with things because he knew techno had tommy, or had suspicions of things, and once it was obvious techno was freshly wounded over a 'betrayal' (which i'll speak of later) did he ask him to join him for doomsday.

and yet he views dream more neutrally than tommy.

tommy ran to techno after exile. did he steal things? sure. did he hide? yeah. but during their later companionship, tommy went along with each and every thing techno wanted him to do. tommy treated him with respect and put his trust in him. he never treated him as anything less than a person. the biggest argument i see is usually people saying that well, tommy called him 'the blade'. on a meta standpoint: that is cc!tommy's nickname for cc!techno. it has been for a very long time and still is. it also sounds badass. use of it doesnt mean he sees techno as only a weapon.

tommy sat with techno on a bench and reminisced about stars. he helped techno get his weapons back, despite his hesitance toward doing anything of ill will towards new l'manburg.

on the contrary i'd argue that despite them both betraying each other, it was techno who betrayed tommy on a much deeper level, which makes his 'im a person' argument feel much more hollow. because if you look back at both of their vods from that era, which i've watched both perspectives from them of that area, you see that it was techno who used tommy for far much than vice versa.

tommy got nothing out of his companionship with technoblade other than protection against dream after his abuse in exile, but we see that not even that was promised as techno was willing to give him up for the deal if dream had so asked.

all tommy had voiced to technoblade that he wanted was his discs, and that he didnt like the idea of destroying the place.

techno made no moves- not once to even help him get his discs back. who, at the time, tubbo had one and skeppy had one (dream got one from skeppy right before he'd caught them at the nether portal).

it wasn't a hard feat, there was never an attempt at techno getting anything tommy wanted. but he sure had tommy come along with him to get his armor and weapons. to do recon on l'manburg. to set up the army of wolves.

in fact, techno had a list, as did tommy, of things he'd wanted to do. top of the list had been to destroy and get revenge on l'manburg, and once tommy had voiced he didnt want to do that, techno stopped bringing it up. but to chat, when he'd go over his list of things to do, he'd purposefully highlight that part of the list, not read it, but show that he wouldn't budge on that idea.

sure, he offered tommy to sit it out. but tommy was vocal on tubbo still being his friend- on him still having friends in that place. that offer was to essentially let tommy sit by and do nothing as his home, which he was still attached to, and his friends, suffered. not to mention there were several times where techno had asked if those people were really friends or really worth it (which directly echoes things dream said in exile. i wont hold that detail against him because he doesnt know what happened in exile, but it is still very shitty to do)

then you have the community house scene. where tommy had been up front about his position on destroying l'manburg since the beginning. he'd nearly told techno every stream he didnt want to do it, or it wasnt a good idea. so, when he'd shouted 'the discs were worth more than you ever were' he realized something.

they weren't. he said it in anger because he knew it'd hurt, and regret it immediately.

and that is when he 'betrayed' techno. as if in the same situation of choosing someone like tommy or phil, techno wouldn't have chosen phil. emerald duo and clingy duo are two sides of the same coin in the sense that they'd chose each other over anyone else.

tommy didnt want to destroy the place. he'd only wanted his discs and to go home and he couldnt get one- and he'd realized that techno and dream were putting him in a mindset of this cycle of revenge that he didnt want a part of, so he immediately rectified the situation and stood at tubbo's side.

that was tommy's betrayal, as if techno hadn't been betraying tommy's trust the entire time they were working together. as if techno wasn't betraying tommy by siding with dream. which you can not even argue techno wouldn't have known did nothing, as tommy may not have said what dream did, he knew whatever it was warranted tommy to go into panic attacks multiple times whenever it was brought up.

but doomsday arrives. tommy fights alongside tubbo. they die many times, they dont have any gear left by the time they have the confrontation with techno. there is a long back and forth between tommy and techno.

but it essentially boils down to techno blaming the outcome on government, tommy and wilbur not helping techno out of a 'high pressure situation' when he executed tubbo (when may i remind you during those vods neither tommy or wilbur had any weapons or armor fit to fight anyone, let alone the fact that they werent allowed to be there. techno said he couldn't 1 v 20, yet he did anyway and killed tubbo) tommy not being loyal, l'manburg being corrupt and not free, etc.

and tommy shouting about how techno had betrayed him, asking why he couldnt just leave people alone because they weren't bothering him, why he couldnt just let people love what they love, why techno killed tubbo even before he was president or apart of a government, etc.

the lines of 'i'm a person' and 'you are techno, but so are we!' come in.

techno solidifies the idea that he's a person, which he is! he's a person, not a weapon, but he's telling the wrong person. because tommy hasn't been the one to treat him like anything less than a person. he very much considers techno a friend and voiced/shouted it many times.

then tommy's part comes in, which i think is a catch because he's not talking about himself. not entirely. tubbo is standing beside him. someone who, according to even techno's own admittance, was killed innocently in his execution. tubbo has to this day not recieved an apology and is infact very much been a target of techno.

behind him you have a battle. you have people like jack manifold, quackity, sapnap, eret, ranboo, etc all fighting. the 'we' is referring to all of them, because based on the surrounding conversation, thats what he's talking about.

because as much as techno is a person, so is everyone else. and this line is so important but overlooked because i think people forget the true devastation of doomsday. because it wasn't just a take down of a government. they didn't only target the government. the entire country was destroyed. peoples homes, their livelihoods. all of their items, gear. several pets were losts. memories were lost. the entire library which held almost every single historical document on that server was lost.

after doomsday so many people had no where to go- which is directly why so many people are divided now. and how many people, even now, don't have homes, that had once found a place to stay in l'manburg. how many people wondered aimlessly with no direction. because lmanburg wasnt just buildings and a government. it was a place people gathered to talk. it was a meeting place, and where so so many people lived.

i also beg you to look at ghostbur's speech to philza, because he says it perfectly. there were people in that town, entirely innocent of techno's devastation. jack manifold, niki, ranboo, and people in surrounding areas like karl, sapnap, george, who all had homes near or within l'manburg.

not only that, doomsday wasnt even casualty free on the lives front, because jack manifold lost his last canon life to techno.

there were people there, and as tommy and techno spoke they were being actively treated like they weren't.

whatever you want to say about doomsday, whether it was an act of revenge or a political move from an anarchist, it wasn't techno that wasn't being treated like a person.

it was all the people he hurt that day, who's whole existence was ignored.

the line 'we're people too' isn't tommy saying 'i'. he's referring to everyone else, and even acknowledging that techno is a person. he's confirming what he said!

i want to even move on to now, to the more recent events of the dsmp since doomsday. how about the night before the final disc confrontation. it was the next time he spoke to techno. tommy fully well and believed he'd die the following day, stole a few potions, but then talked with techno. he said he knew he fucked up, he apologized, and left the door open to right wrongs at a later date or talk more if he came back.

techno hasn't even apologized to tubbo over the execution, let alone given a mutual apology back to tommy.

and he left the door open. he even had invited phil and techno to his hotel opening.

tommy has always had some sort of respect for techno and has never once viewed him as anything less than a person, a friend. he's even apologized and left the door open for them to talk it out someday, a door which techno metaphorically slams shut each time.

meanwhile techno has laughed about tommy's death and imprisonment, and actively continues to help someone who DOES view him as only a weapon. dream to this day views techno as a weapon. even when he had nothing in prison and entirely relied on techno for escape, he'd written down attachments techno had, like steve, just like how he had wanted the axe of peace (then no longer cared for it once he found out techno didnt care), and carl to use against techno so that he could use techno's power like a weapon.

but yeah, yeah tommy's 'we're people too' is the empty statement.

techno didnt just hurt tommy on doomsday. and there were more people there that were hurt by techno than just tommy. funnily enough two of which he consider close friends, and one of which he vows to avenge the death of, but still cant even apologize to that friend's spouse. but he's happy to go on a journey with his friend's spouse to go find and protect their kid.

but yeah. yeah uh, no techno treats other people like people guys! its not like he actively makes it out that in order to even have basic respect from him you have to earn it first. or makes it out that once you wrong him, there's no second chances. no other people don't make mistakes, other people aren't people, only he is, i guess! and he's the only one being treated poorly. he's not doing that and hasn't been doing that since he killed a kid, no! never. /s

anyway anon /nm. i encourage you to rewatch the vods from that time period, because technoblade's biggest character trait imo is that he's a huge hypocrite. which makes him an interesting character, but his statement of 'im a person' is almost always the one clinged to in things. from analysis posts to fanfictions to animatics. but not the follow up of 'we are too'.

because it makes it out as if techno was the only one hurt in that situation. he wasn't. not by a long shot.

[wasflypaw]

Eret, Niki and Fundy's underrated Lore during the Election and Manberg vs Pogtopia arc

When people talk about the Manberg arc, they tend to focus on Tommy, Tubbo, Schlatt, Wilbur, Techno, etc

So I'm here to talk about some POVs that are equally exciting to me (well. As someone who watched the L'Manberg squad and Eret religiously back then)

It's a common misconception that Coconut2020 appeared out of nowhere, but it didnt. Coconut2020 was created during the Pet War, c!Niki and c!Fundy's relationship was growing strong and they were consistently helping eachother and teaming together. Fundy had a whole duel to bring justice for Niki and the pets that were killed, the two were quite close. The election arc started late September as the Pet War was still ongoing, so nearing the end of the Pet War Fundy asked Niki to be VP alongside him if he ran for president. Fundy had been increasingly more doubting of Wilbur and the debate between Pog and Swag was what made him finally decide L'Manberg was corrupt, and when he finally made a decision to start his own party. He didnt believe Pog2020 or Swag2020 would be good for L'Manberg

Coconut2020 was created when Tommy and Sapnap made fun of Fundy. Sapnap had been Fundy's enemy for weeks during the Pet War, so this made Fundy suspicious of Tommy. Fundy told Niki this and this is when Niki decided to run for VP with him, creating the name Coconut2020 from their shared love of Coconut Oil

We get the Election. Neither Fundy nor Niki were streaming this but they had their moments. Fundy and Niki lost, but guess who cheered for them anyway? Eret!

I wanna talk about Eret. Eret is known for his betrayal but nothing that came after. He was a character that was always like "I dont regret doing this" "it was the best option" and was proud of his position as king, poking fun at the L'Manbergians a lot. Despite this he did stay friends with them, kinda. Tommy would mess around with him in lighthearted ways, along w Tubbo. Fundy and Eret's relationship stayed the same, always pranking and messing with eachother. Niki would hang out w Eret a lot. Eret, Niki and Fundy were friends. Eret was supportive of Coconut2020. Eret's mindset of "I dont regret betraying L'Manberg >:)" was flipped on its head when Schlatt was elected

When Wilbur and Tommy were exiled, Eret realized that he cant just do nothing, he had to make it up to them, he had to have a redemption of some sort. Wilbur was NOT happy with Eret of all people attempting to help them, so Eret had to help from the shadows. Eret tells Schlatt he could start a Second War, refused to let him take down the L'Manberg walls, protested against anything he said, and nearly stabbed him once I think. He says as King of the SMP, it's his responsibility to help everyone, he wont stand for tyranny and he has to help Tommy and Wilbur. He burns down the Podium that Schlatt was elected on to show he wont stand for what he does.

Meanwhile Fundy cheered for Schlatt, Fundy helped take down the walls without hesitation, even when Niki was protesting and asking him what he's doing. The thing is, we didnt get to see what Fundy was thinking here as he wasnt streaming, but he reveals his thoughts to Eret, who he trusts.

Fundy tells Eret he's going to be a spy, he's going to act like he's on Schlatt's side and he's going to gather information to take Schlatt down from the inside. He's going to do things that arent pretty.

And he burns the L'Manberg flag as Niki screams "NO!" and Why, Fundy?"

Niki was the one who built that flag, and she had no clue of Fundy's plans. She's hurt, she believes Fundy betrayed her and L'Manberg, after all theyve been through.

Niki during the election day is iconic. Verbally protesting against Schlatt, telling him and Quackity "I hope you starve", being locked up on Jack Manifold's balcony. She was NOT having what Schlatt was doing. She may not have been a founder but she joined days after L'Manberg gained its independence, she cared for everyone there, it was her home, she built the flag and wore the uniform proudly.

Eret's POV of the election is here.

So we got Fundy on Schlatt's side, Niki not knowing what to do bc Wilbur wont come for her, and Eret also not knowing what to do but attempting to be on Pogtopia's side (and failing).

Niki genuinely believes Fundy betrayed her. Niki is upset about Tommy and Wilbur being exiled, saying she misses both of them and they have to get them back. Fundy and Niki argue a lot.

Fundy starts a book, A Spy's Diary. Yall know the book revealed to Wilbur before Fundy joined Pogtopia? That had been being written during every Fundy stream from after the election to that time.

Fundy builds a Manberg flag because Schlatt ordered him to. Tommy burns down the flag. Fundy builds the flag again. Niki burns down the flag

Schlatt continues to tax Niki and not treat her nicely and she continues to hate his guts. She ends up escaping and living in Tommy's summer house. While she's there she promises Henry that she will take him back to Tommy. She vents to Henry that she has no idea who's on her side and she doesnt know what to do.

Funny thing is, Eret had promised the same thing about Henry. Unfortunately nobody saved his VODs. Eret and Niki also made a plan at one point to blow up the White House. This didnt happen for obvious reasons (glances at Wilbur)

Fundy is being constantly promoted by Schlatt, who appears to trust him and not realize he's a spy. He builds a huge Manberg flag out of obsidian and Magma Blocks.

Then the Festival is announced. Wilbur does his whole let's be the bad guys thing n stuff. Schlatt asks Fundy what his relation to Wilbur is and he says he was born inside the walls, and Wilbur is a founder and nothing else.

Wilbur n Fundy's relationship had been strained since the election arc. With Fundy creating Coconut2020 and Wilbur gradually becoming less happy with him, saying to Tommy at one point "he's dead to me". While Fundy had been becoming more disappointed in Wilbur and how corrupt L'Manberg seemed to be. Fundy saying this to Schlatt, whether he meant it or not, was the last straw for Wilbur who was already spiralling.

Fundy helps with the Festival decorations. He makes the Podium for Schlatt, and has a speech about how Schlatt made the country better, how he's done more for it than Wilbur and Tommy. In his Spy's Diary he writes that he's questioning his own stand and if he's on the right side. He seems to genuinely start believing in Schlatt. Schlatt would praise him a lot and seemed proud of him. All he wants is someone to he proud of him

The Festival is a shitfest, we all know this. After the Festival, Fundy runs to Pogtopia, saying "I was wrong." He realizes that Schlatt wasnt good at all, he was just a tyrant, writing "Schlatt needs to go down." In his diary.

Meanwhile Niki was with Tubbo and Tommy. She had been horrified at the festival, she had been in the crowd begging for Techno to stop. She had been one of the people shot when Techno had shot at the crowd. She was horrified upon finding out Wilbur's plans to blow up L'Manberg, and she has a moment where she sits with Tommy and Tubbo and tells them "we need L'Manberg back."

During all of this Eret was pretty much just vibing, he was attempting to help with not much success, he even tried making a big potato farm for Techno that went unnoticed. He started his Museum during this time

10 days before the war, Fundy joins Pogtopia. He shows Wilbur his diary, everything he's been working on, and is told "I despise you."

November 16th. Dream threatens Eret's kingship, warning him not to help Pogtopia and stay neutral. Eret is conflicted, his Kingship is what gives him power, power he can use to help the people he cares about. But on the other hand, he wants to help Pogtopia. Eret is dethroned and cast out of his own castle, to which Pogtopia welcomes him with open arms.

Schlatt has an argument with Fundy, Fundy is hurt and upset, Schlatt had a dream and he followed it, but he ruined the dream. Schlatt thought Fundy was the last person on his side, he was not. Fundy watches Schlatt die before his eyes, and later watches Wilbur die before his eyes.

Niki, Fundy and Eret. All 3 hadnt been in Pogtopia for long at all, didnt know much about the plans or what was happening, werent involved in the government making process, and were part of Techno's wrath anyway. Eret had said "you hate governments, Techno?" as he literally just didnt know lol

They watched as L'Manberg was blown up in front of them, the place Fundy and Eret had helped found, the place Niki had loved and cared for. They were fighting to take down Schlatt and reclaim L'Manberg that day. Fundy POV, Niki POV, Eret POV (2nd part here his stream crashed)

[relaxxattack]

hmm saw a post earlier that was basically saying that their arent any canon ages on the smp so their for it doesnt bleed into character dynamics but like i feel like in canon they do refer to them as children? like tommy literally call wilbur a dirty grown ass man and wilbur refers to tommy as a stupid child (this is what comes to mind first but their are probably more examples) and since ur a bench trio enjoyer i was just wondering ur thoughts

oh 100%.

strictly speaking tommy, being a 17yrold, would have a lot of trouble writing and acting from anything other then a 17yrold’s experience.

and that’s not to say he COULDN’T act as a child or an old man and absolutely kill it, because i’m 100% sure he could. but both of those acts would still be, in the end, from the pov of a 17yrold.

then you have roleplay. not just roleplay, improv roleplay. and not just improv roleplay, but unplanned improv roleplay that tommy started as just his regular youtube persona.

tommy’s youtube persona is a kid. that’s like his number one defining trait— “annoying child” is an act tommy intentionally amplifies for comedic purposes.

tommy went into the roleplay as his “annoying child” persona, and his character, despite clearly maturing in some ways, has largely stayed consistent throughout the seasons.

when it comes to more serious lore-ish stuff, tommy plays the part of someone anxiously longing for safety and perfection. of someone who’s clingy, who follows around anyone he likes and becomes like glue to them, who longs for a home and family so much he forces it sometimes, and yet people become endeared to him anyway.

COULD that character be an adult? sure, but it’s extremely unlikely from how he’s written.

tubbo has straight up said that for c!tubbo he just does whatever HE would like to do. it’s also worth noting that tubbo went in with the same sort of content persona tommy did. and even if his persona is just his normal self— his normal self is still a 17yrold teen.

tubbo acts as a president who has no idea what he’s doing, who’s had no good role models to show him, who is much too small for his coat and boots. tubbo’s character is a boy president in every sense of the word.

COULD an adult be a scared and under qualified president? yes! but ultimately that’s just… not what tubbo portrayed in his acting.

ranboo is… well i’ll be honest, ranboo hasn’t had enough large plot beats for me to give an argument for him character-wise, so i’ll just move on.

even if i was blind to all of this evidence— to all of the ways they act as kids and portray themselves as kids and write as kids— they’re kids canonically in the text as well . president wilbur mentions it multiple times that tommy is 16, they mention it during tommy’s exile sentence, they canonically celebrate tubbo’s 17th birthday, ranboo refers to himself and the rest of bench trio as “kids who technically shouldn’t have to deal with this” during lore, captain puffy has referred to them as kids MANY times, and i’m sure there’s more im not even aware of.

but personally i don’t care much for just “stated” canon— like, all of those mentions could be changed and it wouldn’t do much to the story. tubbo could be celebrating his 23rd birthday and it would’ve been the same, right?

but the plot itself cannot be changed. tommy’s not just a boisterous young man, he’s a scared teen who looks to wilbur as his adult support, and that’s proven by the pogtopia arc. if you change tommy’s age for that you change the context if the text/story itself. same with tubbo and ranboo.

let’s even look at this from the opposite angle: wilbur. he claims his character is like 40. and you know what? i call bullshit!

wilburs character is going through the kind of identity crisis that is often attributed to 20-year-olds. wilbur’s character is also still emotionally dependent on tommy as a brother and ranboo/tubbo as friends, and that’s really fuckin weird for a 40yrold but mostly just sad yet understandable for a 20yrold.

on the opposite end, schlatt is obviously like 20 in real life, but the character he was playing was CLEARLY an old man hanging onto his life and refusing to accept he was deteriorating. not to mention how quackity constantly called him senile.

although with the minors it’s a different story. with c!schlatt i can age him up because he acts it, but if i did that to the kids i think that’d be weird ! why would you age up the kids characters when theyve specifically said theyre kids!

anyway, that is my rant on how the kids are canonically kids, and how “removing” that because “age isnt important or relevant to the story” just isn’t a take that’s viable, because changing the ages of characters (kid characters especially) dramatically changes the context in which we view their actions.

age doesn’t exist in a vacuum!

[cowsandcrows]

dsmp theatee production braainrot

no but like. c!dream actually just wandering through the crowd, monologueing- better, SINGING THE LMANBERG ANTHEM AFTER DOOMSDAY

i am so happy for this

and just all the characters with different amount of armour

wilbur with none obviously but most of dreams costume would be his armour, aside from the mask, and techno would have a lot but it would be embellished and detailed and golden to fit his aesthetic

philza would have just enough to give him some protection but not too much because he doesnt care enough and hes not regularly on the offensive or fighting short-range

so hed have again, armour that fits his aesthetic but mainly like plates on his boots and arms, and maybe a vest that like just covers his chest a bit

OH MY GOSH WAIT. PHILZAS COSTUME DESIGN. WITH HIS WINGS. WOULD BE SO COOL. OH MY GOSHHHHHHHHHH AA

I would kill people to create that costume

ANYWAY characters like tommy or jack would have a lot less armour, just basic stuff

and then when its an actual war like doomsday people will wear change their amount of armour, and it will be so noticeable how much they cover up in that situation

ranboo puts on a full set

techno keeps it easy to maneuvere

tommy doesnt have much, and what he does have would be visibly scuffed and not entirely durable

tubbo has an okay set only because hes the president

dream takes off some of his armour as a power move, unnoticed in the midst of it all

also i just want to. discuss ghostbur. because ohhh my gosh thats such a good focus.

id probably have part 2 focus a lot on techno, though i wouldnt want there to be a clear main character in any of it- like wilburs story would be the focus in part 1, but he dies and that would throw off the audiences understandinf of who the protagonists are supposed to be! MORALLY GREY CHARACTERS HOORAY! CONFUSE THE AUDIENCE AND ANYONE WHO EXPEXTS STORIES TO HAVE A CLEAR GOOD VS BAD DYNAMIC!!!!!

focusing on techno in the second part of the play would be amazing because his interactions with the audience are so unique to other ccs

he talks constantly during lore, breaking 4th wall liberally, hes way less performative in the way he does it too, whereas wilbur and dream would do it with the idea of performance

and like that other person said, techno could actually spend his retirement arc IN THE AUDIENCE AREA

all od this is makinf me think the stage should have a thrust section that is level eith the audience, and maybe even multiple clearings throughout where characters can move to when needed, like with dreams wandering, and where characters that gradually move on-stage will start out? not like for the audience to see, but if youre near them you do see it. different perspectives and stuff

and Tommy might actuallt pick on members of the audience for comic relief, joking around and shit, which would contrast so heavily to exile where he would just sit on the edge of rhe stage and talk to them quietly

and ranboo could be constantly ramblinf to the audience withour a clewr understanding of what they are, and then one person in the audience could actually reply to him, and he could kind of jist stop and go 'wait what, thats not supposed to happen' almost like they did in wandavision if anyone knows what im on about. like that whole interview section? that

AUGHHHH MY BRAIN IS DECAYING schlatt should die in one of those sections in the middle of the audience. im just sayinf. he should.

becayse there are so many different povs to the dsmp i think it would be cool if the stage was set so that different sides of the audience would have a completely different idea of the story

like characters that can be seen wandering around in the background might only be see by the left audience, or the right side might get a different impression of the lighting

or the spotlights could be angled on some characters so that one side of them is obscured by shadow and another side is brightly lit (could work so well with Wilbur or schlatt to communicate how different people hate or idolise them)

please send help

[tobi-smp]

this is more an observation than anything, but there’s this strange discrepancy in how apologists who Also like c!tommy treat canon vs how they interact with other characters.

there’s this tendency from (mainly) dream and techno apologists to soften either the depiction of canon events or the relationship between those characters and c!tommy by taking focus Away From the conflict between them and using another character as a scapegoat.

with techno this will often be a reframing of the situation as l’manberg or quackity or tubbo or wilbur (individually or all together) being the Real Evil that pushed tommy and techno against each other. sometimes it’s a miscommunication born from someone else’s actions (usually wilbur’s back during pogtopia), sometimes it’s tommy needing to learn that techno was right all along (that his friends are all evil or toxic, or on the lighter end that it’s just l’manberg as a system that’s making everyone act out), sometimes it steers away from the personal conflict between them entirely to present the other party as unabashedly evil.

and the ridiculous thing about this is that it’s a narrative that could Easily work, if people recognized that we Have a canonical manipulator and abuser that intentionally sabotaged tommy and the relationships he had with other people through lies, manipulation, and outright abuse. that that Same person has been manipulating techno since his introduction to the series.

and it gets progressively sillier to see people staunchly refuse to use dream as that scapegoat for the tension between tommy and techno’s relationship as we get more and more information about what dream was up to behind the scenes at the time (such as dream being an Actual serial killer canonically [Link])

and then with dream himself there’s this obvious Defocusing on exile, on tommy’s death, or on the logsted chase scene. it’s interesting when you see this line, because Yes there are some people who just fully pretend like dream didn’t do anything wrong while still Liking c!tommy and their dynamic together. which is a sight to behold.

but more commonly you’ll see people who recognize dream as a character who did bad things, but they won’t focus in on What those bad things were. there’s a Playing Up of dream’s sympathetic nature (real or otherwise).

this was obviously felt the strongest with dream being in prison. with aus and fic and “predictions” exploring the possibility of tommy and dream “repairing their relationship” because dream was so pathetic and sad from what quackity had been doing to him that tommy had no choice but to take care of him (and in turn we don’t have to think about the ways that dream would take advantage of that dynamic, because we aren’t Thinking about the specifics of what dream did to tommy). 

which, of course, was largely dropped after dream’s escape From prison. but with that came more interesting framing in terms of animatics and fanart.

people trying to juggle framing dream’s escape from prison as a triumphant moment, while Also having to balance the fact that he Is a villain without digging into the details of What It Is Exactly That Makes Him Villainous (or risk ruining those triumphant and sympathetic aspects).

I’m not going to name names, but the example that brought this to the forefront to me was a fan song that used lines and imagery that intentionally called back to logsted (referring back to not only his past abuse of tommy, but him chasing tommy down to torture him after his escape), but specifically within the context of a triumphant I Win song that presented dream as sympathetic throughout. it would’ve been perfect as a pov song if it’d been self aware.

there’s this need to soften the details, to pull away attention from the ugliness of dream’s actions, in order to either present him as a sympathetic character worthy of redemption or to revel in him as a Fun Campy Villain without being bogged down by the severity of his actions (which, I’m living proof that sanding his actions down isn’t necessary for loving the character).

which of course means that those same people will emphasize the villainous actions of other characters to compensate for the Lack of attention on dream’s actions. quackity and sam are the obvious scapegoats (with tommy being the largest scapegoat for the fandom as a whole, but I digress), but wilbur is of course twisted into the main antagonist of the series before his death. 

which is strange when you look at a character like ranboo, even coming from the same people.

you’ll have people producing art and writing and meta about dream tormenting ranboo, fully embracing the psychological horror aspects of ranboo’s arc with dream front and center in it, and then turn around around and soften dream’s actions towards tommy until they’re just a footnote.

and it’s interesting to me, because it’s not actually Better.

obviously within canon we don’t know the nature of ranboo and dream’s relationship together. we don’t know if ranboo is helping dream willingly or how aware dream was of ranboo’s memory problems. we don’t have any of the details, so it’s not appropriate to put it on the same level as dream’s relationship with tommy.

but it’s Also true that when you have fan depictions of dream intentionally brainwashing a minor to force them to commit crimes (including the death of one of his closest friends), that’s uh. not Not child abuse! it’s a very different Kind of abuse but it is still Abuse.

but dream’s relationship with tommy is the one that has those stigmatized connotations associated with them, while his relationship with ranboo is couched in terms used in fiction. they’re able to revel in Psychological Horror without having to sidestep “abuse.” but there isn’t actually anything Different about dream’s actions here, they’re the same person with the same motivations, the difference is that they’re afraid to revel in the horror of his actions in one instance and not the other.

there’s something about the horror dream inflicts on ranboo that makes it feel like a Safer horror to fans of both characters, as opposed to fans of dream and tommy, even when those fans are the same people.

and then of course with fans of ranboo and techno there’s no awareness that there’s any potential conflict here at all. people were reveling in syndicate content, presenting them as best pals who’ll have each other’s backs for the rest of time, in the immediate aftermath of ranboo joining the syndicate because he didn’t trust techno not to kill his family. which was one of the funniest juxtapositions I’ve ever seen.

[cube-cumb3r]

punishments vs. natural consequences

/rp, ive been thinking a lot about the difference between punishments and natural consequences in the context of the dream smp story. i see talk about characters learning their lesson and needing to face consequences and i think the easiest examples i can start with is tommy.

tommy is interesting to talk about on this topic because he is generally disproportionally punished for the things he does, and yet i think there's an argument to be made that he sometimes doesn't "learn his lesson", right? you know, it's almost as if him not ever getting to face the natural consequences of his actions, never getting to see for himself how they affect people, and instead getting disproportionally punished for it, will only make him come to the conclusion that "i am being unfairly punished" and not "maybe the thing i did was hurtful".

exile is the most obvious example of this. people seem baffled that something as harsh as exile didn't make him "learn his lesson".

if the lesson was supposed to be "people put time and love into their builds, and messing with them might hurt their feelings" then how is being isolated from his friends alone on a beach in the middle of nowhere gonna make him come to that conclusion? instead, something that would make him come to that conclusion is perhaps seeing how his actions actually affect people, seeing people get feel hurt when their build is damaged and being upset with him, but that's not what happened. george never got to confront tommy about it himself, and dream made the decision to exile tommy on george's behalf. [really good post breaking the exile conflict down from georges pov btw]

if the lesson was supposed to be "being reckless while being a representative of a whole nation is selfish because youre putting other people in danger" he's not gonna learn that either, because he can clearly see in front of it how manufactured the trolley problem in question actually was [relevant joke post], he could clearly see that it was dream who had cornered the new lmanburg cabinet, it was dream who had threatened war, it was dream who demanded tommy to be exiled, all over something so mundane that he might not even have realized was hurtful to george. (see paragraph above). he will think "it's not me putting the nation in danger, it's dream", and the only lesson he could've possibly learnt is "i am being unfairly punished."

and thats just the mere action of exiling tommy, not even bringing into everything that happened afterwards during exile. we don't even have to open that can of worms to make this argument.

and i'd even go so far as to argue, the intent of the punishments have never been to teach him anything meaningful in the first place anyway, it's just to get him to stop. it's not about tommy reconsidering the way his actions may affect others, it's not about internalizing the idea other people are hurt by his actions and don't like him nor respect him as a direct consequence of that, it's just about punishing him until he stops. which will never work! he's stubborn and he doesn't like being bossed around, as long as he himself doesn't see his own actions as hurtful, he'll fight back, he'll escape, he won't listen, why should he? he's being unfairly punished after all.

on the other hand, the simple natural consequence of People Just Thinking Hes An Asshole could be enough for him to question himself and come to the simple conclusion that "maybe the thing i did was hurtful", and "maybe if im not mean to people, they'll will respect me more". perfect example of this is this little interaction with ponk back in s1, (...which i've been waiting for an excuse to shove into an essay because i like it so much...)

Sapnap: Ponk, I need you to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere. I’mma go look for the other two suspects.

Ponk: Don’t leave me with him!

Sapnap: He’s on half a heart, Ponk. You got him, right?

Ponk: Yeah, he’s mean!

Sapnap: Alright officer, well- you-

Tommy: What- Did you get upset by my- by my…-

[...]

Ponk: Why’d you always have to be so mean, Tommy?

Tommy: How am I mean- you’ve li- You’ve imprisoned me, Ponk!

Ponk: All you do is shout!

Tommy: That’s not true, I’m talking at quite the reasonable tone.

Ponk: Which is kinda scary for me, ‘cause you’re probably planning something!

Tommy: When have I ever planned anything, that’s gone successfully? Except the other war that I won the other day.

Ponk: True. So you are a veteran at this?

Tommy: True! That’s very true.

Ponk: I like this side of Tommy.

Tommy: Yeah, I like it too! You know what, Ponk?- [overlapping]

Ponk: Keep this up and I might- I might do something- [overlapping]

Tommy: [overlapping] -We’re actually becoming good friends!

Ponk: Yeah!

Tommy: What, so you’re my friend?

Ponk: Maybe!

[...]

Tommy: And hey man, listen, I’m fine with you keeping your tower there, as long as you’re fine with me having a ‘this is property of Tommyinnit’ sign on the front. And even though it isn’t! But just so, just so I can feel like it is, is that cool with you?

Ponk: Okay. [overlapping]

Tommy: [overlapping] And I’m totally fine with it! [makes displeased look at the camera.]

Ponk: Yes.

Tommy: Awesome.

Ponk: I’m good with that.

[longer transcription here, also it's just a cute little clip go watch it]

it's easy to miss, it's an obscure little scene in early s1, ponk thinking he's mean, because he is. tommy making a compromise, that he maybe isnt even completely happy with, just to resolve their current conflict. and realizing that just being nice to someone will make them respect you and want to help you. it's significant because it shows that it's things like this that couldve made him learn his lesson and grow as a person. not punishments. just natural consequences, and learning from them.

essentially, tl;dr, my point is, facing ones own consequences without external interference will always be more meaningful than manufactured consequences. and seeing for oneself the way how one affects people will always teach one more than being punished for it. etc.

[luminouslotuses]

obsessed with the idea of the song exile being from the two perspectives of c!tubbo and c!tommy during– of course– the exile arc, bon iver’s parts being tubbo’s pov & taylor’s parts being tommy’s. it’s full of resentment, full of regret, the entire Exile Arc™ package.

the song evermore, on the other hand, is set much later on. tommy’s distressed & in low spirits, stuck in that anxiety-induced mindset he’s all too familiar with. tubbo’s there to comfort him, helping him remember that, no matter how bad the hurt seems now, it wouldn’t last forever.

and tommy believes him, knowing the reason why tubbo’s still there for him, and why he’s still there for tubbo, is because things do and will continue to get better.

if you couldn’t tell this is very non-canon